


The Next Generation

by kamala_khan_for_president



Series: Life On The Farm-Verse [3]
Category: Champions (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ms. Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Cross-Posted on Wattpad, I'm Bad At Tagging, Inhumans (Marvel), Major Character Undeath, Multi, Mutants, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sokovia Accords, Teenage Lorna Dane, Young Avengers Vol. 2 (2013), Young Avengers: Children's Crusade, and one you actually see, one mentioned in the future
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-11 04:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11707254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamala_khan_for_president/pseuds/kamala_khan_for_president
Summary: After the events of Captain America: Civil War, the Avengers are left split and the world is left without it's heroes to protect them. Enter the Young Avengers. Having met up with the Avengers, Kate Bishop and friends founded the new team to pick up where the Avengers left off, but they are not the only young heroes that have stood up in place of the adults. And some people on the team are hiding huge secrets that threaten not only the future of the team, but the whole world.





	1. Recruitment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the Avengers MIA, the Young Avengers have stepped up to the plate to try and protect the people. But what is Hope Yards and who is behind them?

7/6/17

“Look out!” Kate screeched through the comms, seconds before they crackled out. America ducked, narrowly dodging a fireball.

“Where did that come from?” America hissed, landing down next to Kate in her hiding place behind the half built wall a few hundred metres away from the main fight.

“Probably that giant canon that those henchmen just wheeled out a few minutes ago,” Kate muttered. America stood up and peered over the wall. Her eyes roamed the surrounding area before she spotted the large white and grey canon the henchmen were firing by the entrance to the site. There was a small, sudden breeze and America crouched back down again, turning to see Tommy.

“So, this recon only is going pretty well,” he said with a smirk, blowing his white fringe away from his orange goggles. His face shifted from his usual sarcastic look to one of concern. “David’s been hit, he’s okay, Noh’s got him, but we need to get him out of here”

“And our only escape route is being blocked by a canon that’s shooting fireballs” Kate finished.  Seconds later, the sound of the comms system spluttered back to life.

“Can you guys hear me?” David’s voice came over the line. Kate winced at how weak he sounded, they had to get him out of here, and fast.

“Guys, we need a plan,” Teddy said, stating the obvious.

“Punch everyone,” America declared, standing back up and sizing the henchmen left.

“One that goes further than punching everyone,” Kate argued. “Surely one of you guys- AMERICA NO!”. Kate lunged forward in an attempt to stop America from climbing over the wall, but she was too late.

“AMERICA YES!” she cried back as she swooped over, knocking over three henchmen in one go. Kate sighed, grabbed her bow and vaulted the wall. Her feet landed on the dusty ground and she instantly drew her bow back, letting an arrow fly. It hit the canon, setting off a small explosion and the whole thing caught light.

“Splodie arrow. GO! GO! GO!” she screamed. Tommy whizzed past, carrying David, a small trail of blood marking their path. Teddy flew overhead, carrying Billy and Noh-Varr. Kate turned to run to the exit, but the flames had spread and trapped her in. She took a few steps back until she hit the wall. Her eyes desperately scanned the surrounding area, looking for anywhere stable enough for her to shoot a grappling hook into.

“Don’t worry princess,” America joked. “I’m coming”. She swooped over and grabbed Kate from the fire. Kate yelped as her feet left the ground and the two of them flew over the flames before touching down back down outside the gate.

“Well that went well,” Kate said with a small laugh. She looked around the group, quickly making sure that everyone was okay. Everybody seemed to be fine, except from David, who was leaning heavily on Noh-Varr and Tommy. “I mean, everyone’s still alive”

“Yeah, well we need to get David out of here and fast,” Tommy blurted out in one go, anxiously running his hands through his white hair, staining it pink with David’s blood. “Like now”

Kate nodded and ran off round the corner towards the van. She unlocked and sped back to the others. America yanked the back doors open and the rest of the team piled in. America slammed the doors and ran round to the passenger door and climbed in next to Kate. The second the door closed, Kate slammed her foot down on the accelerator and the van sped out the alley and into traffic. America craned her neck round and for a moment she caught sight of a figure clad in blue, a red scarf trailing behind them, before she looked back over at the construction site cringed at the sight of the flames billowing up towards the sky.

“Do you think we should send Hope Yards a cheque?” America asked.

Kate looked over at her friend, a playful smile spread across her face. “With what money? My dad has practically disowned me, we’re broke. The fact he hasn’t shut off the utilities to the base yet is amazing”. A comfortable silence fell between the two of them as they drove in silence for a while, the only sound coming from the back of the van, David wincing in pain with every small movement of the van and Tommy’s quiet reassurances. Kate eventually broke the silence. “Thank you for saving me by the way”

“What are friends for?” America shot back quickly, brushing off the sentiment. Her eyes flickered to the back of the van, resting on David for a second before settling back on the road ahead as they drove into the city. “Wish I could’ve gotten to everyone”

“It’s not your job to watch over all of us every second,” Kate reassured. “You were busy fighting off those henchmen and Billy was able to shield him from the majority of the blast. And, if it helps, I don’t think you’re beating yourself up over this as much as Tommy”.

America snorted. Kate looked over and the two girls couldn’t help but smile. She looked forward and saw the warehouse coming towards them, the Bishop Publishing logo printed on the side of the building. America reached into the glove box and found the remote for the door. She flicked the switch and a door on the side of the building opened, allowing the van into the warehouse. Kate closed the door as Tommy helped David out of the van and onto the sofa. Billy switched the lights on and the large white lights on the ceiling of the warehouse flooded the place with light.

Tommy was sat on the floor by one of the mismatched sofas gathered in a small circle around a small marble table that Kate had managed to somehow get out of her dad’s apartment unnoticed. Teddy dashed over to the small kitchen on the other side of the open plan bottom floor and grabbed the first aid kit.

The kitchen was underneath a balcony that hung over the back of the warehouse, stretching across two thirds of the width of the warehouse. Another balcony was above that, covering the same amount of space, but on the other side of the room. A spiral staircase connected the three floors. From the top balcony ran a thin walkway that was suspended between the top balcony and another platform. Two of the walls on the far platform were lined with bookshelves and a ladder that led to a hatch that opened up onto the roof. There was a small gap in the railings, allowing people to jump down onto the sparring mats below. The mats were taking up half the floor space at the front of the warehouse. The van was parked next to the mats and large set up of monitors was mounted on the wall next to the van, security camera footage from around the city flickering up on the screens. There was a few step up from the front of the warehouse, where sofas and kitchen were. Next to the sofas was set of gym equipment and a small corridor snaked behind the stairs and towards the back door.

Teddy ran back to where David was lying on the sofa, Tommy’s hands pressed to where the blood was still slowly oozing from his side. Tommy and Teddy set to work patching up David’s side.

“Check we weren’t followed,” Teddy yelled to the others. Kate ran to the monitors and flicked through the security footage. Noh-Varr charged up the stairs and sprinted up the across the walkway until he reached the ladder. He scrambled up, threw open the hatch and hauled himself out onto the rooftop, his eyes scouring the city surrounding him. Billy threw open a door by the stairs and ran down another flight of stairs into the concealed basement below. He checked the only other door that led out of the basement. After making sure it was secure, he went back upstairs to help David using his powers.

America flew out the van door and circled the area a few times. Just as she was about to head back to the warehouse, when she spotted a figure on a rooftop a few blocks away, a pair of binoculars trained on Noh-Varr. She swooped down and grabbed the figure by the collar of his coat and carried him to the roof of the warehouse. She unceremoniously dropped him through the hatch. He fell past the ladder and rolled dangerously close to the gap in the rail before stopping. America dropped down after him, landing on her feet next to him. She hauled him to his feet and dragged him across the walkway and down the stairs. Noh-Varr jogged behind her, closing the hatch as he went.

America threw the boy down in the armchair and shoved her hand on his shoulder, leaning right into his face. “Okay, who the hell are you and what were you doing spying on our base?” she demanded .

“My name is Eli Bradley,” he explained, awkwardly leaning back from America. “And I want in”.

America glowered at Eli for a second before leaning back against the coffee table, her arms crossed over her chest. “Not what I was expecting, but continue”

Eli shifted uncomfortably under the gaze of the whole team. David was sat up again, propped up between Tommy and Kate. Teddy, Billy and Noh-Varr had all sat on the sofa on the opposite side of the table.

“After the government lost the serum that made Captain America, they tried out an earlier version on a group of three hundred of their own soldiers, all of them black,” he explained. “Didn’t work on any of them, except my Grandpa. Somehow, it got passed down to me and I also have the super serum in my blood”

A silence fell over the room for a few moments. “So you’re a super soldier?” Kate asked. “Like Cap?”

“Kind of. I’ve been watching you for a few weeks. You’re doing good work now that the Avengers aren’t doing anything much anymore. And I want to help,” Eli offered. “I have a suit and shield if that helps”

“Somebody’s eager,” Tommy joked, earning him a sharp blow to the ribs from David. “But we should all talk about this first”. At that, the whole team stood up and went and sat around the table in the kitchen. Tommy helped David over and lowered him into one of the chairs at the end and took the other one next to him. Kate and America sat on one side of the table and Billy, Teddy and Noh-Varr took the other.

“So what are we going to do?” Teddy asked.

“I think we should let him in,” Kate said. “I mean, a super soldier on the team would be pretty good. Then we’ll be even more like the Avengers-”

“But gayer,” America said, cutting Kate off before she could finish her sentence. The two girls turned and smirked at each other. Billy rolled his eyes at the two of them; they really could be oblivious at times.

“I agree,” Noh-Varr added. “I mean, have you seen the guy”. Everyone turned to look at Eli, who was still sat in the armchair that America had thrown him into. They all turned back; Kate, Billy, Teddy, Tommy and David nodding in agreement.

“I do not know what you guys are talking about,” America sighed, shaking her head in confusion.

“So we’re in agreement?” David checked. “Eli’s in”. Nobody made any move to disagree. David lightly shoved Tommy in the arm and Tommy helped him to his feet and over to the stairs. “See you tomorrow Eli,” he called over his shoulder.

Kate threw a key at Eli. “This way,” she ordered. Eli scrambled to his feet and followed her past the stairs and to a door. She opened the door and stepped back to let him out. After following him outside, she closed the door. “Key,” she demanded. Eli handed her the key. She stuck it in the lock and turned it, causing a small hatch to open, revealing a key pad. “The code is 5862. Try not to forget it otherwise the door will take your key and we don’t want that”. She typed in the code and the door popped back open. “Seeya”. She closed the door on his face.

“Right then,” he muttered as he walked away from the door and down the alley.

***

Kate watched through a small window as Eli walked down the alley and away from the warehouse. She double checked the door was locked before walking back round the corner and up the stairs. She paused for a moment just before she reached the first balcony to turn off the main lights, leaving only the soft glow of small lamps on the two balconies. She carried on, smiling at the boys briefly as she ran up the stairs past them, their lights turning off as she went. She came to the top of the stairs and her feet hit the soft carpet of the top balcony. America was just pulling some pyjamas out of the cupboards as she got there.

“You sorted him out princess?” America asked. She pulled her top over her head and Kate ducked her head into the cupboard, desperately trying to hide the blush crawling across her cheeks.

“Yeah, he’s good,” she replied, quickly changing into a pair of purple pyjamas. “We’ll be seeing our newest member again tomorrow”. She sat down on her bed, the purple sheets dipping under her weight. She grabbed her phone, her nails painted the same sparkling shade of purple as the phone case. “Three voicemails,” she muttered.

“You have three new messages,” the automated message began to say. “Message one: received from Clint “the idiot” Barton at 21:23. Hey Kate, word of warning; the Arrow season finale will kill you. Also, Laura wants to know when you lot are next coming over, Lila’s missing you. You’re watching Dog Cops with me when you do. Speak to you soon, bye. Message two: received from international number at 22:56. Congratulations, you have won the new iPhone 7…”

Kate rolled her eyes as she let the message continue. She turned and threw a purple pillow to get America’s attention. “Hey Laura wants to know when we’re next going back out to Iowa”. America just shrugged and Kate smirked as the message finished playing.

“Message three: received from withheld ID at 00:06,” the voicemail continued. “Thank you for that Miss Bishop,” a distorted spat threw the phone. “You and your friends really put our operations behind schedule at Hope Yards earlier tonight. But you haven’t stopped us, and you won’t. Consider this your first warning. This next time I won’t be so nice to you or your friends in Waverly”. The phone crashed on the floor as Kate’s hands flew to her face in shock.

“Kate?” America asked in concern. “Kate, what’s wrong?”. When Kate still didn’t respond, America vaulted her bed, landing on the floor in front of her friend. “Kate what’s wrong? Please speak to me”

“They know where they are America,” Kate whispered, still in shock. “Hope Yards know where the Avengers are. And they said they’re going to tell the government if we don’t stop”

***

A man in a long green cape stormed into the room and slammed his hands down on the desk. “We had a deal and that deal was that your forces would protect my development site,” he yelled.

“And we did,” the woman sat behind the desk reasoned. “It wasn’t our fault those Kid Avengers decided to show up”

“Young Avengers,” he corrected.

She looked up from her work to stare the man dead in the eye. “You say that as if you actually care about those kids. If it helps, we have reached out to their leader and warned her of the consequences if they try anything like that again. I don’t think they’ll be much of a problem in the future”

“I should hope so,” the man snapped as he stalked back out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

The woman sighed and pressed a small button her desk, putting her through to the henchman on the front desk of the lair. “Could I please have a bit of warning next time Doctor Doom decides to show up?” she requested.

“Of course Madame Masque”


	2. M.G.H

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While taking down a drug dealer, the Young Avengers learn that not everything about their new recruit is what it seems

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word of warning, I have never written a kissing scene before in my life and this one took my like a whole week of procrastinating and deleting what I'd written so far because I had no idea what to do

23/6/17

“I hate New Jersey,” Kate whined. America sighed at her friend from where they were perched on a rooftop overlooking another Hope Yards site. “We always seem to end up here and it never ends well”

America leant closer to Kate. “And what could make it end well princess?”. The two of them were mere inches away and a slight red blush rose to Kate’s cheek as she suddenly became highly aware of America’s breath on her cheek.

“If you two are done snuggling up, we’ve got actual work to do,” David joked over comms. “North west corner of the site , there’s four guys in hoodies and I think they’ve got a bag of M.G.H”

“What is that stuff again?” Tommy asked. Billy sighed in exasperation at his teammate.

“M.G.H. is short for Mutant Growth Hormone,” David explained, despite having already explained this to Tommy several times on the way over. “It enhances powers in enhanced persons and temporarily gives non-enhanced people powers, such as, super strength and durability”

“You sound like a textbook,” Tommy commented.

“Guys, they’re on the move,” Eli called out.

Kate looked over at America and smirked. “Race ya”. She leapt to her feet and dashed across the rooftop. She jumped to the ledge and soared off the side of the building. She fired a grappling hook arrow into the top of the building next to the Hope Yards site and swung over the fence. She released her hold on the line and began to descend to the ground of the site. She landed on the ground, America right behind her.

“I’ll take the two on the right, you take the ones on the left,” America offered.

“Deal”

Kate threw herself forward, swiping his feet out from underneath them. America punched the first guy who came at her, sending him flying into the wall, knocking him out instantly. She grabbed the other by the hood of his jacket as he tried to run away and threw him to the ground. She placed her foot on his back, pinning him in place. She looked over just in time to see Kate shoot her two with tranquiliser dart arrows simultaneously.

“Nice work princess,” she complimented.

“Thanks,” Kate said, brushing her hair out of her face, grinning at her friend.

“Didn’t think to save any for us,” Noh-Varr laughed as he and the other boys ran into the site. The boy pinned under America’s foot groaned as he tried to look up at the others. He was eventually able to and immediately started laughing.

“Hey Eli, how’s it going?” he said. “Need a fix earlier this week?”

“What is he talking about?” America demanded through gritted teeth.

“I don’t know,” Eli spluttered out.

“He does,” the boy argued. “M.G.H., gets it from every week, like clockwork. One of my best customers actually”

“Tell me he’s lying,” Teddy demanded. Eli didn’t respond.

America sighed in defeat. She lifted her foot, allowing the boy to go. “Just get out of here, and don’t do anything like this again or-”

“Or what?” he asked. “You’ll set Ms Marvel on me”. America’s nostrils flared and she took a step towards him.

“Seriously, just go before she hits you,” David advised. The group watched as the boy ran down the street, only to be dragged into an alley way by a pair of long red arms. “I’m going to go with that’s Ms Marvel”

“I can explain,” Eli started before America pinned him against the wall.

“Well you’d better start,” she hissed. Kate placed her hand on America’s shoulder and she released her grip on Eli, allowing the boy to fall to the floor.

“I was telling the truth about my grandfather but the serum never got passed on to me,” he confessed. “I wanted to do this, join you and honour what he did, so I took the M.G.H and that was my dealer. I’m sorry”

The others stared at him in stunned silence for a few moments, unsure of what to say.

“I think it’s best that you leave,” Billy finally said. Eli nodded. He stood to his feet and slung his shield over his back.

“For what it’s worth, I really am sorry,” he apologised before heading down the street. He paused for a moment to stare down the alley that the arms had dragged the drug dealer down, before carrying on down the road, round the corner and out of sight.

Kate sighed and walked to the other side of the site as the boys began to talk. America watched her for a second, before following her. “You never did tell me what could make this night end well princess”

“Getting away from here would be a start,” she sniffed. America smirked and wrapped her arm around Kate’s waist, getting a small laugh from the other girl. She took off, flying the two of them away from the Hope Yards site.

“Do we let them go?” Teddy asked. Tommy shrugged.

“Oh my god,” David muttered, staring at the sign for the development site. “How did we miss that?”

“Miss what?” Billy worriedly asked.

“Hope Yards Development and Relocation Association,” David recited, staring at the sign. “Hydra, we’ve been dealing Hydra”

Nobody said anything for a moment. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Noh-Varr spluttered.

***

The two girls’ feet touched down on the roof of the warehouse a few minutes later. Kate used a key to unlock the roof hatch and the two of them climbed down the ladder and onto the small platform below. Kate stormed across the walkway over to her bed on the top floor. She threw herself face down onto her bed, groaning loudly.

“Well, it could’ve been worse,” America offered.

Kate rolled over to face America. “How?”

“We could’ve had a call from that threatening person again,” she said. “I mean, we did end up on another Hope Yards site again tonight”

“Alcohol,” Kate said.

“What?” America asked.

“You asked me what could make this night end well and alcohol would definitely help right now,” Kate replied.

“I’ll see what I can find princess”. America jumped over the railing and landed with a soft thud. Kate changed into her pyjamas as she listened to America’s footsteps in the kitchen. Moments later, she landed back on the balcony. “I found vodka. Thought we’d skip the shot glasses”

Kate looked over to see America holding two mugs and a half full bottle of vodka. “Gimmie,” she muttered, reaching out for the vodka.

America snorted at the sight of her friend, but came and sat down with her. She half-filled each mug and put the bottle on the floor out of Kate's reach. She passed the purple mug to Kate, keeping the stars and stripes one for herself. She held her mug up to Kate. “Cheers,” she said. Kate smiled and clunked her mug against America’s. America took a sip as she watched as her friend downed the mug in one go, before taking the rest of America’s and drinking that too.

“I really needed that,” she muttered. She leant over and rested her head on America’s chest, giggling slightly.

“You don’t handle your drink very well, do you princess?” America asked, her breath catching slightly in her throat as the girl cuddled up closer to her.

“Not really, but that was a lot at once,” Kate reasoned. She paused for a moment, her ear pressed against America’s chest. “Your heart’s beating really fast”

America sucked in a breath and shifted Kate off her chest. She grabbed the two mugs and vodka jumping over the side of the balcony and returning the items to the kitchen. She flew back up and straight into her bed, flicking the lights off as she went. “Night,” she said to Kate, closing her eyes and desperately hoping to fall asleep quickly. A few seconds later, America felt Kate’s weight land on her bed.

“Did I do something wrong?” she whined. “Because you’re never like this with me”

America turned so she was facing Kate, who grinned innocently at her. “You didn’t do anything princess,” she whispered. “Now go back to bed”

“Last time I checked, this is a bed,” Kate argued, as she wiggled underneath the covers and closer to America. “See, it has a duvet and everything. Seriously, what did I do?”

America reached over to tuck a lose lock of hair behind Kate’s ear, her hand lingering on the side of her face for a few moments. “Kate, you didn’t-HMPH”

America was cut off by Kate’s lips on her own. She supressed a squawk before closing her eyes and kissing the girl back. She felt Kate smile against her lips as she rolled over so she was lying on top of America, her hands creeping up into America’s hair. America’s hands slid down Kate’s side and tugged at the hem of her purple shirt, pulling it up and over her head. Kate was quick to do the same and the two shirts were quickly discarded on the floor. Just as America’s hands were beginning to tug down Kate’s purple shorts, she felt America pull away and press a finger to her lips.

“Shush,” Kate hissed. America smirked at the girl and pressed a kiss to her exposed collarbone. Kate bit her bottom lip and playfully whacked America in response.

“I dunno, it’s pretty quiet. Maybe they’re already asleep,” came Billy’s voice from downstairs. America cringed as she realised why Kate had tried to quieten her.

“I’m just gonna get something from upstairs,” Teddy said.

The two girls remained as still as they could as Teddy’s footsteps echoed up the stairs. He turned the lights on the first balcony. The light poured upstairs, casting long shadows across the room. America stared up at Kate, her long black hair tickling America’s face. She reached up to stroke Kate’s cheek. Kate’s eyes flickered back over to America and she smiled softly at her. The lights turned back off and Teddy’s footsteps retreated back downstairs. The door clicked shut and Kate let out an undignified snort.

“Where were we?” America asked as her hands crept back to Kate’s shorts. Kate responded by pulling America’s face to hers and capturing her lips in a passionate kiss.

***

Kate awoke to the feeling of someone’s arm draped over her waist and a hand drawing patterns on her bare back. She opened her eyes to see America staring back at her. "Morning," she mumbled, still half asleep. 

"Good morning," America replied, smirking slightly at the sleepy girl. "We should probably go downstairs. The boys have been up for a couple of hours now" 

"You're right," Kate sighed. She climbed out from under the covers and grabbed discarded pyjamas from the floor and began to get dressed, chucking the others back at America. 

"Hey Hawkeye," America called. Kate turned around to see the other girl sat on the bed in red, white and blue shorts and a purple t-shirt. "Do you see the problem here?" 

Kate considered it for a moment, before shrugging and pulling America's t-shirt over her head. "I don't care what the boys think". She paused for a moment. "Unless you do?" 

"Oh no,' America said, throwing her hands up in defence. "We are not having that whole 'define the relationship' thing right now" 

"So, you're saying there is a relationship," Kate whispered, coming over and sitting on the bed, leaning closer to America until their noses were almost touching. 

"I hate you," America muttered, closing the distance and kissing the girl. Kate grinned against her lips, before pulling back and jumping off the bed.

“Come on,” she grinned, holding her hand out. America looked down at the purple t-shirt in consideration for a few moments, before reaching out and letting Kate haul her off the bed. She pulled the girl closer, intertwining their fingers. Kate grinned at her as they headed down the stairs together and into the kitchen.

“And what time do you call this?” Billy demanded, not looking up from his coffee.

“Quarter to ten,” David said as he came down the stairs, his hair damp from the shower. His eyes locked onto Kate and America’s joined hands. “Well this is new”. Billy looked up from his coffee and spluttered at the sight of the two girl.

“What’s your problem?” Kate asked, resting her head on America’s shoulder. “You and Teddy are much worse”

“A little warning would’ve been nice,” he muttered into the coffee. “How long has this been a thing?”

“About ten hours,” Kate replied. There was a sudden lull in the conversation, David trying not to laugh.

“Well, I’m going to go have a shower,” America announced. She pulled Kate closer for a quick kiss, before releasing her hand and flying up to the second balcony.

Kate grinned smugly as she poured herself a bowl of cereal and sat at the table, opposite from Billy, who had gone back to drinking his coffee. David walked past towards the toaster, high-fiving Kate as he went.

“HeyguysI’mback,” Tommy announced as he sped into the room, a breeze blowing Kate’s hair in her face. “AnythinghappenwhileIwasgone”

“First of all, slow down,” Billy instructed, as Tommy threw himself down onto the seat next to him. “And secondly, America and Kate slept together last night while we were out”

“Bout time really,” Tommy said. Kate snorted as Billy stared at Tommy in shock and David jumped in surprise as the toast popped.

“I heard that and I agree,” Teddy called as he rounded from the door. He had a handful of shopping bags in one hand and was half-dragging very hungover Noh-Varr.

“What the hell have you got there?” Kate demanded when she saw the state that Noh-Varr was in.

“A couple of loaves of bread, some milk, cheese, ham and some more of those weird little chocolates that America likes,” Teddy listed as he stared into the bags. “Amongst other things. Oh and this hungover idiot that I found in an alley three blocks away”

“I thought I was back,” Noh-Varr muttered from where he’d flopped down on the floor. “I’m gonna go to bed”. He stood up and tried to walk up the stairs, but tripped up the first one and face planted on the staircase.

Kate grabbed the chocolates from the bag and headed towards the stair, where she lifted Noh-Varr up to his feet. “I’ll take this idiot to his bed and these chocolates to America”. She half carried Noh-Varr up the stairs and safely dumped in his bed by the railings of the balcony. She leant over the railings to give the others a thumbs up and then ran up the stairs to the top balcony. Just as she reached the top of the stairs, America came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel.

“Bathroom’s all yours,” she said as she snatched the chocolates from Kate’s hands.

“Done so soon, I was hoping on joining you,” Kate complained.

America’s cheeks flushed slightly at Kate’s comment. “Well, there’s always next time princess”. She walked over to the cupboards and pulled out some clothes. She lobbed some of them at Kate. “Get dressed, we’re going out”

A few minutes later, the two girls were walking out of the door, hand in hand. “Seeya later,” Kate called back over her shoulder as they left.

“I always thought they’d make a cute couple,” Teddy said.

***

The two girls walked hand in hand to a small coffee shop a few blocks away. America waved to the old lady behind the counter.

“Your usual orders girls?” she asked.

“Yes please Bea,” Kate said. She dropped America’s hand to go an pay at the counter. America smiled at her and went and got them a small table towards the back of the shop.

“Nice to see you two girls together,” Bea commented as she bustled about making the girls drinks. “Bout time one of you asked the other out. I only saw you lot the other day, how long has this been going on for?”

“Oh, well,” Kate said, tucking her hair behind her ears as she blushed furiously. Bea had a habit of acting like a surrogate grandmother to most of the kids and teens that came into her shop, which meant Kate was a little hesitant sharing any details about her sex life with her. “About twelve hours”

Bea grinned at Kate as she placed the two mugs on a tray. Kate paid for the drinks and as she was putting the change back in her purse, Bea placed two chocolate muffins on the tray.

“On the house,” she said with a cheeky smile. “A small congratulations to you and your girlfriend”

Kate smiled back at her as she carried the tray over to where America was sat. The other girl eyed up the muffins as she sat down. “Where did you get those?”

“These are apparently a small congratulations for me and my girlfriend,” Kate replied. America raised her eyebrow from behind her coffee mug. “Sorry, I know you said earlier that you didn’t want to do the whole define the relationship thing, but Bea-”

“Kate, calm down,” America reassured, resting her hands over Kate’s. “I just meant I didn’t want in case the boys were listening in on our conversation. And I like the sound of being your girlfriend, as long as that’s okay with you of course”

Kate grinned and leant across the table to grin at America. “Of course it is”

The two girls smiled lovingly at each other, unaware of Bea, who was happily spying on them from behind the coffee machine.

***

It was a few more hours before the two girls returned to the warehouse, still hand in hand. Kate was happy to see that by this point, Noh-Varr had sobered up and was looking a little less dead. He was sat at the table, a plate of food in front of him , a piece of bacon on a fork halfway to his mouth. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t as sober as Kate first thought.

“There you two are,” David said, poking his head out from the kitchen. “The other three are out on patrol. I volunteered  behind and look after the drunk baby here and wait for you two to come back”. Noh-Varr pouted at being called a drunk baby, but made no move to disagree.

“So we’re patrolling during the day now,” America said, more a statement than a question. “When did we stop being worried about getting caught and either getting arrested and thrown in prison or forced to sign the Accords? Because I feel like I missed the memo”

Kate gave her girlfriend an exasperated look, the other girl raising one eyebrow and shrugging in return. “Billy did mention something about tracking down some leads on finding out who Daredevil is and I think Tommy mentioned something a guy with a glowing fist?”

“The Iron Fist,” David corrected. He shook his head, a playful smirk. “Tommy has been going on for weeks about that. Apparently, we’ve already had enough ‘Iron’ superheroes, Iron Man and Iron Patriot. What’s next? Iron Lad?”

Kate snorted at the thought, before grabbing America’s hand and pulling her towards the stairs. America tugged her back, spinning her slightly into her side. She held Kate close and flew the two of them up to their floor.

“Hey!” David called after them. “Same rules apply to you two as they do to Billy and Teddy. No funny business when everyone else is here. Either wait until we’re gone or go somewhere else and yes, the basement counts as somewhere else if you put the do not disturb sign on the door”

Kate ran over the edge of the balcony and leant over the railings. “What about the bathroom on our floor?” she asked.

David froze for a moment, unsure of what to say. “I suppose,” he was eventually able to stutter out. “But if we get another girl on the team, the second that happens, you are disinfecting the entire room, top to bottom with the strongest bleach known to man/Kree/Skrull”

“Will do,” Kate promised. She kicked off her boots and shrugged off her jacket and walked back over to America. She grabbed America by her hoodie and started to walk backwards towards the bathroom. “We’d better find that bleach”

America smirked, reaching behind Kate to open the door. “Guess we’d better princess,” she whispered in her girlfriend’s ear. She slammed the door behind them and turned them around so that she was pressing Kate against the door. Kate’s eyes searched America’s face for a moment, before pressing her lips against America’s.

***

David winced as the door slammed closed. “They’d better find that bleach,” he whispered. At that moment, the back door opened and Teddy, Billy and Tommy.

“When one door closes, another one opens,” Noh-Varr commented, wincing slightly when David whacked lightly round the back of the head.

“Kate and America not back yet?” Teddy asked.

“Oh they are,” Noh-Varr giggled. “They’re upstairs, banging in the bathroom”. As if on cue there was a small thud from on the floor of the second balcony.

“I did not need to know that,” Billy said.

David looked over to see that both he and Tommy were holding large boxes. “What are those?” he demanded.

“Weird stuff we found from before S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, the second time round. I still don’t think it was actually Quake that shot him by the way,” Billy explained.

“We know,” everyone else replied at once, bored with his S.H.I.E.L.D. conspiracy theories.

Billy shot a glare at all of them. “We’re just gonna take these downstairs”. He muttered something under his breath and blue shot the door to the basement open. Billy and Tommy walked through the door and down the stairs before the blue lights slammed the door shut behind them.

“So how’d it go?” David asked.

Teddy sighed and sat down at the table opposite from David. “Nothing new, we’re still no closer to finding these people. They could be a real help, if we just knew where they were and who they were”

“What about that Jessica Jones and Luke Cage?” Noh-Varr asked.

“I tried going over to Jessica Jones, but she seemed a little drunk and probably didn’t want any visitors at that time. All leads on Daredevil had turned up empty, so I chased up a few on Luke while the other two were looking for Iron Fist. From what I can tell, he’s still in prison, so no help to us at this moment”

“We’ll find them eventually,” David said with a hopeful voice.

“I hope we do,” said Teddy. “Because I feel like something big is coming and we’re going to need all the help we can get”

***

“They’re still talking about the Defenders,” said Billy. “Do you think we should tell them that it’s Matt and Danny”

“Nah,” Tommy replied. He threw the empty cardboard box to the side. “So, there was a reason I asked you to bring empty cardboard boxes down here without telling the others”

“Well get on with it,” Billy demanded.

“I got a message from Mom”

Billy sucked in his breath and shifted awkwardly: it had been a long time since either of the twins had heard from their mother. “And?” he questioned. “What did she say? Is it about Aunt Lorna? Is she okay?”

Tommy shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “It’s not good. They don’t know how much time she has left. Gramps isn’t taking it good, nobody is. We have to get this done as soon as possible, or it’ll all be too late”

“So our deadline has moved up a bit then?” Billy asked.

"Just a little. It's probably taken about about a month off what time we thought we had, but that still gives us over a year," Tommy answered. "Uncle Pete said we were being sent some reinforcements though" 

"Who?" Billy asked. "One of our sisters?" 

"He didn't say," Tommy said. He pulled back his jacket sleeve to look at his watch. "All he said was they'd be here in 3.. 2.. 1.." 

Just as Tommy finished speaking, a bright blue light filled the room before collapsing back together in the shape of a small person, only about five foot tall. The light dimmed away, leaving a young girl, only about fourteen stood where the light was, a large black suitcase stood at her side. She had the same Eastern European complexion as the boys, with long blonde hair down past her shoulders and light blue eyes that scanned the room before settling on Billy and Tommy. 

She grinned when she saw them, before launching herself at them, wrapping her arms around them. "I missed you both," she exclaimed. Both boys quickly returned the embrace. 

"Missed you too cous," Tommy whispered back. 


	3. Spider-Men?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While undercover at a local high school, Luna, Billy and Tommy find out that there are more young heroes operating in the city than first thought

30/7/17

"I still think this is a horrible idea," Kate said for the fifth time that morning. 

"Relax, it'll be fine," Billy reassured. "It's one undercover op, what could possibly go wrong?" 

"Now you've jinxed it," Kate joked. "Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong" 

America lightly hit her girlfriend in the arm. She was lying down on the sofa, her head in Kate's lap and Kate was running her fingers through her hair. "Why are you going undercover at a school anyway?" 

"Anonymous tip said something weird involving Hydra is going to happen there today," Billy explained. He leant closer to the mirror on the wall and fixed his tie for the third time in a row. 

"From who?" Noh-Varr asked.  

"If he knew, it wouldn't be anonymous," said a girl's voice from the door. Tommy walked into the room with a young blonde girl, who had a pink backpack over one shoulder. 

"Who's this?" Teddy asked. 

"Well, I didn't think any of us could pass for students, so Luna Max...us, yeah Maxus, here volunteered," Tommy explained, resting his arm on her shoulder. "Her dad is friends with my mom, so we knew each other growing up" 

"So Billy is going undercover as a TA and Luna is going undercover as a student," David checked. "Kate's right this could all go horribly wrong" 

"I'm going as backup, I'll wait round the corner if anybody needs me," Tommy reassured. 

"We have to go or going to be late," Billy said. He reached over and kissed Teddy before turning to head out the door with the other two. 

America slid up so she was sat next to Kate. She leant over to her girlfriend and caught her lips in a passionate kiss. 

"You know, there might be something we missed looking for the Iron Fist," Teddy stuttered, avoiding looking at the two girls. "Do you two want to come help look?" 

David and Noh-Varr nodded eagerly and the three boys raced out of the warehouse, barely stopping to close the door. America detached herself from Kate, barely containing her laughter. 

"Told you it would work," Kate sniggered. 

"Didn't doubt you for a second princess," America smirked. She ran into the kitchen and pulled a large bag of popcorn from one of the cupboards as Kate put a DVD in the TV. "Why are we watching this again?" she asked as the Arrow intro began to play. 

"Because Clint said it's a goof show and won't stop texting me about the season five ending," Kate explained. America rolled her eyes. "And we're watching all the shows by the way" 

"Of course we are," America sighed, leaning into her girlfriend's side as they watched Oliver Queen run across the screen. 

***

"Maxus, really?" Luna complained to her cousins as the three of them sat on the subway.  

"I panicked," Tommy defended. "It could've been worse" 

"My Mom's from Attilan and my Dad is from Sokovia and I grew up in upstate New York," she said. "None of us are from Ancient Rome" 

Billy snorted in amusement. "She dies have point," he defended when Tommy glared at him. "Where did Maxus even come from?" 

"Like I said, I panicked," Tommy argued. "Now will you please let it go" 

Billy and Luna looked at each other and smirked. "Nah," they both said at the same time. Tommy groaned and slid downwards in his seat until he was almost sliding out of it. 

***

The three cousins slid comms into their ears as they stared up at Midtown High School. 

"I'll wait round the corner, shout if you need me," Tommy said before rushing off in a gust of wind that blew Luna's hair into her face.  

"I hate it when he does that," she whined. 

"Me too," Billy agreed. He placed his hand at the base of Luna's back and began to direct her through the sea of people outside the school. The two of them navigated the crowd until they found their way to the reception. 

"Hi, can I help you?" the receptionist asked. 

"I'm Billy Maxus, the new TA and this is my cousin Luna Maxus, she's starting here today," Billy explained. 

The receptionist smiled politely and tapped her keyboard a few times. The ancient looking printer next to her whirred to life and slowly spat out two sheets of paper. She handed one to each of them. "These are your schedules," she explained and turned to Luna. "Yours also has your homeroom, locker and locker combo on it". She turned to Billy. "You'll want to head to the staff room to find Mr. Grove and he'll explain what you'll need to do. Oh, and you'll both want these". She passed each of them a map of the school from the stack she had on the desk next to her. 

"Bye," Billy and Luna muttered simultaneously. 

"Seeya later," Luna said, disappearing off into the crowd. Billy watched her until she was out of his sight. He sighed and headed towards the staffroom, checking the map every few moments. 

***

"Who are you?" a snarky sounding voice demanded. Luna groaned and turned away from her locker to see a group of three blonde girls. The one at the front was slightly taller than the other two and her arms were folded across her chest. 

"Luna Maxus," she replied. "I'm new". She turned away from the girls and opened her locker. She swung her backpack round and began emptying some books into her locker. She felt the eyes of the three girls burning holes into the back of her head. She spun back around so she was facing them. "Is there a problem?" she said with a small smirk. 

"Hmph," the leader sighed. "Let's see how long you last here blondie". With that, she and her minions turned and stormed away. 

"But you're-" 

"Don't bother trying to reason with Chelsea," interrupted a voice from behind Luna. She turned to see a boy about her age leaning against the locker next to hers, his arms filled with large textbooks. "I don't think she can be reasoned with. I'm Iain". He stuck his hand out for Luna to shake. 

"Luna," she introduced, shaking his hand. "I'm new today. Do you know where I can find Mr Rox's homeroom" 

Iain smiled at her. "That's my homeroom," hr grinned. "Come on, it's this way". He waved his hand in the general direction of the homeroom as he began to step away from Luna. She slammed her locker shut and hurried after him in the crowded hallways. As they were walking, a poster caught her eye. 

"What's that about?" she asked.

"Oh, that's the Tri-State Ultra Mega Science Fair," Iain explained. "They normally host it at Madison Square Garden but some kid accidently blew the place up with a pocket nuclear fusion generator, so they won't host it anymore. So Midtown volunteered. It's going to be crazy busy today and I think we have a few lessons where we just go and watch instead of working,  but don't worry; school's not normally like this. We're here". 

Iain led her into a homeroom with posters in Spanish plastered all over the wall. He waved at a small group near the front of the room. He weaved his way through the class, dragging Luna behind him. 

"Hey Iain," greeted a girl with orange hair and freckles all over her cheeks and nose. "Who's your friend?" 

"This is Luna Maxus. She's new," Iain introduced. "Luna, this is Rebecca St Jude" 

Luna trued to not let her surprise show on her face. "Nice to meet you Rebecca," she said, holding her hand for Rebecca to shake. 

"Please, call me Becky," Becky smiled back at her. She cast a look back at the rest of the group. "Let's go sit somewhere else" 

Iain nodded and the three of them headed to the back of the room. 

"Who were they?" Luna asked. 

"A group of idiots I end up helping with their homework before Iain gets here," Becky explained with a sigh. "I say help, I mean I end up just doing it for them most days" 

Luna grimaced and nodded in understanding, avoiding making eye contact with Becky. Iain led them to the back of the room and the three of them sat in a group of three seats

“I just need to text my cousin,” Luna apologised. She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone.

**‘There’s a science fair on today. That might be what Hydra is planning on hitting. I’m meant to be in there first period. What about you?’**

**_‘I’m there too, meet you in there’_ **

**‘Will do. What about Tommy?’**

**_‘I’ll text him.’_ **

Luna tucked her phone just as Mr Rox came into the room. He was a short man in his late fifties, his short grey hair thinning on the top of his head. A pair of small round glasses were slowly slipping off his nose. He held a stack of books in his arms that were threatening to spill at any moment. He managed to reach the desk at the front of the room and dump them on the table before they could fall.

“Morning class,” he mumbled, not looking up from his paper’s. He pulled a notice out from the stack of sheets and read it, looking puzzled. “Apparently we have a new student joining us today”. He looked up and scanned the room, his small eyes squinting behind his glasses. “Luna Maxus?”

Luna awkwardly raised her hand at the back of the classroom. The whole class turned to look at her. Instead of shifting uncomfortably under their glares, she stared each of them down until they all looked away again. Her Aunt Lorna would be proud.

“Very nice to meet you Miss Maxus,” Mr Rox greeted. “I think everyone’s here, so everybody head to the hall. the Tri-State Ultra Mega Science Fair is being held here today and so everybody has been given the morning off to go see all the entries”. He gathered his papers back in his arms again and hung back in the classroom until all the students had left, desperate to avoid as much of the crowds in the hallways as possible.

Luna followed Iain and Becky towards the hall. They slid through some double doors and into a large room filled with boards on tables explaining complex science projects.

“I need to see someone about joining the scholastic decathlon team,” Becky said. “Come with?”

Iain nodded and Luna reluctantly followed the pair across the hall towards the New York team, all wearing matching red sweater vests. 

"Hey Michelle, Ned," Becky called, waving at two people. She paused for a moment, looking confused. "Where's Peter?" 

"He's had to go out of town for like a month," a boy, Ned Luna guessed, explained. "Something for his Stark internship" 

Michelle pulled a confused expression. "I thought he'd lost that" 

"Well he got it back again," Ned hurriedly explained. 

"I was told to come to you about joining the decathlon team," Becky said, turning the conversation away from the absent Peter. 

Michelle shoved a few sheets of paper at Becky. "We meet in the library at last period. I'd love to chat, but the New Jersey team is going down" 

Iain and Becky followed Michelle’s gaze across the room to a group of people wearing blue sweater vests. The group seemed to notice the New York team watching and most of them shot them a look back. A girl with blue hair tied up by a yellow hairband face-palmed and shook her head.

“What do you say Miles?” Ned asked. Everybody turned to look at a boy stood in the middle group. Luna assumed that he was Miles. He was about average height, with brown skin and short black hair. He was wearing a pink and white striped shirt underneath his red sweater vest with a pair of grey trousers.

“If it’s anything like last year, they won’t be any problem,” Miles reassured. “They’ll either blow the place up or the Connecticut team will have them suspended until they can assess the mental state of sky shark. We’ll be fine”

Everyone nodded earnestly at his words, while Luna just looked confused. “I promised my cousin I’d meet him in here, I need to go find him,” Luna excused before slipping away to find Billy. She circled the hall a few times before she spotted Billy. She waved at him and walked over.

“Find anything?” he asked.

“So far I’ve found nothing in particular, but this whole place is filled with next level tech and science and smart minds, so Hydra could be after anything,” Luna replied. “Also, I think I may have run into Lockdown”

Billy stared at her in shock. “The Lockdown? As in Becky St Jude”

“About 5’5, freckles and orangey hair shaved on the right?” Luna asked. Billy nodded. “I met Lockdown”

“I love how our parents sent us back here with loads of info on supervillains but none about any superheroes,” Billy joked. “Especially with the amount that came out of this area around this time. We could’ve met like ten already and we would’ve never known. Also, I’ve seen two people I met while at S.H.I.E.L.D. and I’m still in contact with, so I’d best avoid them or my cover will be blown”

Luna smirked. “The only one I did get anything on is Uncle Peter, and he’s out of state for a month, so no Spidey”

“So we have no backup, except for my idiot brother and at least one future supervillain,” Billy listed.

“That idiot brother is still on the open comms link-up, just so your aware,” Tommy reminded the two of them.

“Sorry,” Billy and Luna muttered.

“You forgot the imminent Hydra attack,” Luna added. Billy sighed and held his head in his hands. “This should be fun, I’ll go keep an eye on Lockdown and you-”

The sound of explosions and walls collapsing cut Luna off.

***

Miles watched as Luna slid away into the crowd and towards a weirdly familiar looking person who was stood by the doors. Before he could make any move towards them, the walls started to shake.

“What the hell is happening?” Ned shrieked.

Miles took the moment of confusion to slip away unnoticed. He disappeared behind a large set of curtains at the end of the room and began to scramble out of his clothes, revealing his black Spider-Man suit underneath. He winced at the sound of the wall behind him crashing down as he frantically dug through his pockets to find his mask. When he found it, he yanked it over his face before dashing out from behind the curtains.

“Oh futz,” he hissed as he took in the crazy scene around him.

A huge hole had collapsed in the middle of the wall, exposing the hall to the outside. Dozens of soldiers in garish green and yellow outfits with red lenses over their eyes spilled through the hole. They stood all around the room yelling at the students and teachers who were trying to rush out the doors on the other side of the room. A green blur whipped through the room, two people who it had run by vanishing with him. The tallest one of the soldiers reached to his belt and grabbed his gun. He raised it above his head and fired a shot. The whole room froze as he pointed the gun towards a nearby student. The other soldiers all reached to their belts, grabbed their guns and began pointing them at students, as if they’d just remembered they existed.

“Get down on the ground and shut the hell up,” he barked. Everyone lowered themselves to the ground quietly, not daring to make a sound.

Miles looked up at the ceiling, mentally mapping out the rafters of the hall. He shot upwards, pulling himself after the webbing. When he reached the top, he shot another line across the halfway across the hall. He swung down directly in front of the lead soldier, snatching the gun out of his hands as he went.

“Not a fan of guns,” he laughed as he landed on the rafters on the far side. He threw the gun behind him and shot more webbing, sticking it to the wall. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted somebody attempting to run. Seconds later, one of the soldiers noticed them, and turned his gun.

“No!” Miles yelled as he went to swing over and move the runner out of harm’s way.

Before he could, a large hand on the end of a long red clad arm knocked into the soldier, sending him into the wall.

***

As the chaos swarmed around her, Kamala caught Bruno’s eye. She shoved her way through the crowd towards him.

“I need you to make a distraction,” she yelled over the confusion. “I need to go change”

“Is this not a good enough distraction?” he argued, waving his arms wildly around.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kamala spotted Spider-Man, looking very lost and confused. “That’ll do,” she muttered as she rolled underneath a nearby table. With the table cloth shielding her from the rest of the hall, she began to tear of her clothes, revealing her red, blue and yellow costume underneath. She flinched at the sound of a gun-shot.  At the same moment, she felt a small breeze, like somebody running, only much faster. 

"Not a fan of guns," a voice laughed. She pulled back the table cloth just enough to see Spider-Man, in a black suit she noticed, looking very smug as he stuck a gun he'd obviously just stolen from one of the soldiers to the wall. 

At that moment, she spotted somebody attempting to escape on the  other side of the hall, but she wasn't the only one to have seen. One of the soldiers turned their gun on the escapee. 

"Embiggen," she muttered to herself. Her left fist grew to ten times it's original size and she she used it to punch the soldier, her arm growing longer to allow her to do so without leaving her place under the table. She used her other hand to shove her mask onto her face as she shrunk her fist down and returned her arm to its normal length. She crawled out from underneath the table and stood firmly, her hands on her hips, long red scarf trailing behind in the wind coming from the giant hole in the side of the hall. 

"Who are you?" one of the soldiers demanded. 

"I'm Ms Marvel," she replied. "And these people are under my protection" 

There was the sudden sound of somebody landing next to her. She looked over to see Spider-Man.  

"They're under our protection," he said.  

The soldiers all turned to her and Miles and opened fire. But before any of the bullets could hit, a wall of blue light sprung up between the two heroes and the bullets. 

***

One moment, Luna and Billy were stood inside, watching Hydra spill into the room, the next they were stood outside, Tommy between them. The three were crouched behind a wall, hidden from the street. Tommy had changed and was now wearing his bright green and white suit.

“I got ya suits,” he smiled, holding up two duffel bags. Billy snatched his bag from his brother and yanked off his blaze rand began to undo his tie. Luna grabbed her bag and turned away from the others and changed into her suit. It was black with a yellow design running from her right hip, to her left shoulder and down her arm, and a pink collar.

“Nice suit,” Billy complimented when she turned back around. He was in his black and galaxy print suit, with his long, and rather dramatic, red cape.

“Thanks,” she replied. “Dad thought that I should have a proper one before I came back and Aunt Lorna helped me design it”

“What did Aunt Crystal think?” Tommy asked.

Luna snorted. “My Mom didn’t want me to come back at all”

"Enough talking," Billy sighed. "We've got people to save" 

Tommy and Luna exchanged look, rolling their eyes. Tommy grabbed his brother and his cousin and sped them back into the hall. They arrived just as Ms Marvel and Spider-Man stood together in front of the Hydra soldiers.  

"Looks like we do have some backup after all," Luna whispered. 

The Hydra soldiers turned and opened fire on Ms Marvel and Spider-Man. Before any of the bullets could reach them, Billy waved his hands, muttering a spell underneath his breath. A wall of blue energy sprung up between the heroes and the bullets, shielding them from harm. 

Ms Marvel spun around. "We need to get these people out of here!" she yelled.  

Tommy smirked. "I'm on it," he said as he dashed around the room, grabbing people and depositing them outside and away from harm. 

Spider-Man swung into the air on his web shooters and began to snatch more guns off Hydra soldiers, sticking them to the wall as he'd done before.  

Billy raced off towards Ms Marvel, Leaving Luna on her own. Spider-Man landed back down on the floor next to Luna. 

"Who are these people?" he asked in a voice that sounded weirdly familiar to her. 

"Hydra," she replied. "They're probably here to take anything that's been made that would be useful to them as well as some of the smarter kids so they can get them to work for them" 

"They're panicking," Miles exclaimed. 

"Understandable given the circumstances," Luna said with a roll of her eyes. 

"Is they don't cooperate until the speedster can get them out, Hydra will kill them," Miles explained. 

Luna smirked at him. "I think I can help with that". She concentrated on the people and allowed herself to see the auras of the crowd, the colours swimming in front of her clearly showing the panic in the room. She reached out mentally and was able to calm down the crowds, the colours in the auras shifting to reflect the change. 

"That was cool," Spider-Man whispered in astonishment. "You keep up with whatever it is you're doing and I'll see if the others need help". He swung away towards the fighting. It was at that moment that Luna realised where she recognised his voice from. 

"Miles?" 

***

Miles landed next to Wiccan and Ms Marvel who were in the middle of fighting the Hydra soldiers. Wiccan was muttering spells under his breath and shooting energy discs at the soldiers, while Ms Marvel was hitting them with her embiggened fists.  

"That girl back over there said that these people are Hydra," he yelled over the chaos, ducking out of the way of an axe that a solider had just tried to throw at him.  

"Well that's just great," Ms Marvel grumbled, punching another soldier into the wall. All of a sudden, she spotted something on the other side of the room. "Bruno," she muttered quietly to herself. 

Miles followed her line of sight towards a tall and lanky kid with shoulder length brown hair from the New Jersey team. Ms Marvel embiggended her whole body before diving across the room and tackling the Hydra soldier who was attempting to capture him. Miles could've sworn her knew the other boy from somewhere. Then realisation hit him like one of Ms Marvel's fists: one of his friends from the old S.H.I.E.L.D. program knew him. Which meant Ms Marvel was... 

"Kamala?" 

***

Kamala looked up from where she was pinning the Hydra soldier to the ground using her whole body to check on Bruno. He smiled at her seconds before the speedster grabbed him and dashed out of the room. By now, there were only a few people left in the room, including a small blonde girl in the corner of the room. Her eyes were glowing, letting off a light that distorted the rest of her face. She appeared deep in concentration, so Kamala decided not to disrupt her. 

"I have an idea," the speedster yelled as he whipped past her and towards the others. "Try and get them all together". Kamala and Wiccan began to chase them into one group in the middle, Wiccan using his spells and Kamala using her sheer size, while the speedster continued speaking to Spider-Man. 

"Now!" the speedster yelled once the group had been gathered together. Spider-Man shot a line of web onto one of the soldier's chest and the speedster grabbed Spider-Man and began to run the two of them in circles around the Hydra soldiers. When they stopped, the soldiers were neatly wrapped up in webbing, stopping them from going anywhere. 

"That actually worked," he laughed in relief. 

Wiccan glared at him. "You mean you didn't even know if it would work? Speed, you really can be an idiot at times" 

Kamala snorted. "You're name is Speed, very original" 

Speed stared her down. "Says the girl in Superman's colour scheme" 

"We should probably go," Wiccan interrupted before a fight could start. "Because I can hear sirens and I have a feeling that we're all meant to be in that group outside" 

Kamala and Spider-Man nodded. Speed sped off, snatching the glowing eyed blonde girl from the corner. Spider-Man awkwardly slid sideways to the back of the hall to where his clothes were probably hidden. Wiccan sighed and began to run after Speed. As he went, the hood of his cape slid down for a second before he was able to shove it back up. Kamala was able to  catch a glimpse of an all too familiar face. 

"Billy?" 

***

The three of them rode the subway home in silence. Well, they did, until Tommy decided to break it.

“So there’s more than one Spider-Man,” he stated.

“Can nobody come up with an original superhero name and whole aesthetic these days?” Luna asked. “I mean, you guys have an American themed hero, a speedster and magic user, who are twins, Hulkling, which is at least trying to be different, and Hawkeye, who wears all purple. Not to mention, you’re the Young Avengers”

Tommy lightly punched his cousin in the arm. But, she did have a point.

“Two Spider-Mans, that know of. There could be more, it seems to be a popular theme,” Billy pointed out.

“Spider-Men,” Luna corrected. “Like X-Men, where the singular is X-Man”

“I hate superhero grammar,” Tommy complained. The other two nodded in agreement, before they let the silence wash back over them.

***

"We're home," Tommy called out cheerfully as he and Billy entered the base.  

David and Teddy were the first to reach them. David hugged Tommy to him tightly, while Teddy pulled his boyfriend in for a kiss. Kate and America were the next ones over. Kate threw her arms around Billy and hugged him to within an inch of his life. America lightly punched Tommy in the arm, her way of showing affection. 

"We all saw the news," stated Noh-Varr, not even looking up from his book.  

"We were so worried," said Teddy as he looped his arm around Billy's waist. Billy smiled up at his boyfriend, resting his head against his chest and linking their fingers together. 

"Don't worry," he reassured. "We're all fine" 

"Pretty cool team up though. Was the girl with the glowing eyes Luna?" Kate asked.  

"YeahitwasImgonnagoforarun," Tommy said all at once before disappearing back out the door. David sighed, staring after him.  

"Dude, just ask him out," Billy laughed. David blushed furiously and spluttered out an unintelligent response. The others laughed at him as they all made their way over to the sofas to sit down. 

***

Tommy's run stopped halfway down the same alleyway as the entrance to the base. He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked a door in the side of the building opposite. He entered and made sure to lock the door behind him. The only thing in the room was a second door opposite the first. There wasn't even a light, the only source of light being a small window set into the door Tommy has just come through. He pushed open the second door, revealing a set of steps leading downwards. He carefully and slowly moved down the creaky old steps, hearing the door close behind him. When he reached the bottom he pushed open another door that led him out into a mouldy old tunnel, lit by flickering strobe lighting overhead. He walked exactly three steps down the hall and reached yet another door. He pushed this one open to reveal a brightly lit security door. 

"Enter password," the door demanded, the robotic voice crackling out of a speaker above a small keypad. He typed in the number 5682 and the door sprung open. 

Tommy stepped inside the room and looked around him in wonder. A few weeks ago, the small studio apartment hidden in the underground network he'd discovered had held nothing but some plain furniture and a small kitchenette. The same furniture was still there, but the place looked like somebody was living in it now. 

Somebody had painted the walls a beautiful pastel yellow and hung family photos all around the room. The day bed in the corner had a set of blue floral sheets covering them and odd mismatching collection of cushions that the owner had clearly loving collected over the years lining the sides. A vase of fake flowers decorated the small coffee table, as well as TV guide with the remote left abandoned on the purple three person sofa. A placemat had been set at each of the four chairs around the table in the small kitchenette. Somebody was stirring a pot of pasta and sauce at the hob in the kitchenette, two bowls set the side. 

"Hey Luna," Tommy called. 

"Hey Tommy," she replied. "Did Billy tell you that we'd both pulled out from Midtown?" 

Tommy snorted. "I'm guessing they were pretty sympathetic about it all" 

Luna laughed as she placed the bowl of pasta on opposite places a the table. She took one seat and he took the other. 

"Sorry your first mission was pretty chaotic," he apologised. 

"Nah, that was nothing," she laughed. "I worked with Dad and Aunt Lorna at Serval Industries for a while before-" 

She cut herself off suddenly, staring down at her plate sorrowfully. 

"Hey, it's gonna be okay," he reassured. "We'll find the girl, sort everything out and then we can go home and everything will be as it was before" 

As he finished his sentence, his eyes landed on one of the many pictures hung around the room. It was of him and Billy, their two sisters, Luna, their Mom and Aunt Lorna and Uncle Pete before all the chaos truly began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the Magnus family from the comics, so expect to see a lot more of them from now on.
> 
> That's all I have written for now, but I'm writing new chapters for both fics. I'm also planning on doing another 24 Days Of Ficmas this year that will cover both stories and I'm open to any suggestions for short holiday themed oneshots. 
> 
> Thank you for reading xx


	4. Coles Academic High School

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A second attempt at undercover leads to a crazy pizza related event and the formation of a new team

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to anyone who figures out which comic story I stole half the plot from

“Billy? Teddy?”

The two boys looked up from their table in Bea’s coffee shop to see Miles stood in front of them.

“Can we help you?” Billy asked.

Miles looked around the small shop before pulling a chair up to the table. “I saw something weird at the Tri State Ultra Mega Science Fair and I don’t know what to do, and I know you went to the S.H.I.E.L.D. academy, so I thought you might be able to help,” Miles said, managing to get it all out in one breath. Teddy and Billy exchanged a confused look before turning their attention back to Miles. “There’s something else I need to tell you, and I know it sounds weird, but I’m Spider-Man”. He paused, waiting for the other two’s reactions. There were none.

“We already knew that,” Billy explained. Miles’s eyes bugged open at Billy’s statement. “Luna figured that out when she was at Midtown with me and Tommy a few months ago. When Hydra attacked the Science Fair”

“You guys were there?” Miles exclaimed. “What were you doing?”

Teddy smirked. “They were fighting with you”

“I’m Wiccan,” Billy explained when he saw Miles blank expression. “Teddy’s Hulkling, Tommy’s Speed, and Luna, well, she doesn’t have a code name, but she was that girl with the glowing eyes”

Miles just stared at the two of them in stunned silence.

“What did you need to tell us?” Teddy asked.

“I think Kamala is Ms. Marvel,” Miles spluttered out. Teddy and Billy shushed him and looked around the shop to make sure that nobody had heard him. Thankfully, the only other person in the shop was Bea, and Billy was sure that she sure knew who all the Young Avengers were. He presumed she wasn’t saying anything because they spent so much time, and money, there, she let it slide, despite the fact they were all breaking the Accords.

“You know what I’m thinking?” Billy asked with a coy smile. Teddy sighed in annoyed despair at his boyfriend.

***

“Not undercover work again,” Teddy complained as he and Billy walked into the base with Miles ten minutes later. Miles stared in awe at the transformed warehouse.

“You guys have like a proper secret superhero headquarters,” he said. “That is so awesome”

“Hey Luna,” Billy called out when he spotted her sat bored on the sofa, flicking through Netflix. “How would you feel about going undercover at another high school?”

“Do I want to know?” Kate asked. “And why did you bring Miles here”

“He’s Spider-Man,” Billy explained. “The one in the black suit, not the red one. Oh, and he thinks he knows who Ms. Marvel is”

“Who is Ms. Marvel?” David asked.

“Kamala Khan,” Miles answered. “The girl on the group from Jersey”

“Wait, so you guys know Ms. Marvel? This undercover work is beginning to sound interesting,” Luna said, switching the TV off and turning her full attention to the conversation. “I’m up for it”

Billy cheered as Teddy sighed.

“So,” America said, looking to Miles. “Where does this Kamala go to school?”

***

“Welcome to Coles Academic High School,” the receptionist greeted as Luna walked up to the front desk. “What can I help you with sweetie?”

“I’m a new student. Luna Maxus,” she replied.

The cheery receptionist smiled even brighter. “That’s lovely”. She clicked her mouse a few times and a printer next to her spat out a timetable. “Here’s your timetable,” she said as she passed the sheet of paper over. “Somebody should be here to show you around in a minute. You can take a seat over there until she gets here”

Luna muttered and thank you and headed over to the chairs on the other side of the room. She took a seat as she studied the timetable. She raised one eyebrow when she saw the class. She made sure the receptionist wasn’t looking before pressing a finger to her ear, activating the comms unit.

“Why am I in the tenth grade?” she asked. “I’m not even fifteen yet. I should be with a freshman, not a sophomore!”

“We had to put you up a year,” David explained. “I was able to hack the system and put you inside the same class as Kamala. Also, the New Jersey school system needs to improve its cyber security, it was embarrassingly easy to hack”

“Well that’s comforting,” Luna muttered.

A pair of footsteps echoed down the hall and into the reception. “Hi, I was told to come and give a new student a tour”. Luna looked over to see a tall, pale girl, not more than a year older than her. She had long blonde hair that was pulled up into a messy bun, pink and blue streaks running through. The receptionist pointed to Luna. The girl turned around and waved when she spotted Luna. “Hi, I’m Zoe Zimmer. It’s nice to meet you”. Zoe stuck out her hand. Luna shook it as she rose to her feet.

“Luna Maxus,” she introduced. “Nice to meet you too”

“Can I see your timetable?” Zoe asked. Luna handed her the sheet. She watched as Zoe scanned the paper, before her face split into a grin. “We’ve got a few classes together. But, I’m pretty sure that at least one of my friends is in each of these classes”

“Kamala is in all of them,” David added over comms. “We thought that would be the best way for you to keep an eye on her”

Luna supressed the sarcastic comment, it probably wouldn’t help her befriend Zoe, Kamala and their friends if they thought she was insane. She’d make up for it later though.

“This is homeroom,” Zoe said as she led Luna into a classroom. She went straight over to a group on the other side of the room, tucked away in the back corner. “Hey guys. This is Luna. She’s new today and I said she could hang out with us”

“Hi, I’m Michela Miller, but everyone calls me Mike,” introduced a girl sat on a desk. She was wearing a mint green dress with white polka dots, and a bright yellow bandana tied back her blue hair. She pointed to the boy who was sat at the desk she was perched on. “This is my boyfriend Bruno Carrelli”

“And that’s Nakia Bahadir,” Zoe added, pointing to the girl sat two seats in front of Mike and Bruno. She was wearing a brown jacket and a red hijab. “Where’s Kamala and Josh?”

“Josh just got called down to show another new student around,” Nakia explained. “And Kamala is running late, as per usual”

Zoe sighed and rolled her eyes. She sat down in the seat in front of Bruno and Mike. She patted on the seat next to her and Luna shrugged her bag off her shoulder before settling into her seat. A few moments later, two more people came into the room.

“Hi guys,” greeted the tall blond one. “This is Amadeus Cho, he’s new today”

“And this is Luna,” Zoe introduced. “She’s also new. Luna, this is Josh”

“And still no Kamala,” Nakia added with a sigh. “She’s always showing up late to everything these days. And she seems so distracted”

The others nodded in agreement. Amadeus and Josh sat down, leaving an empty seat next to Nakia, presumably for Kamala. The bell rang just as the teacher bustled through the door.

“Settle down everyone,” she shouted over the noise of the class. “Miss Miller, I believe you have a desk of your own to sit at, you don’t need to sit on Mr Carrelli’s”

Mike sheepishly slid off the desk and sat down in the one next to it. The teacher began to call the register. Luna drowned the sound out as she studied the small group she was sat with. Josh kept stealing looks at Zoe whenever she wasn’t looking, which was often as she was staring at- Nakia? Well this looked like it could be interesting. Nakia kept looking at the door.

“Kamala Khan,” the teacher called out. “Kamala Khan. Kamala?”. She raised her voice above the low chatter in the room. “Has anyone seen Kamala?”

“Wait!” a voice yelled from the corridor. “I’m coming”. The door was shoved open by an out of breath girl. “I’m here”

“Good, and please try and be on time tomorrow Miss Khan,” the teacher instructed.

Kamala nodded and flopped down next to Nakia. Luna carefully studied the girl discreetly comparing her to the pictures of Ms Marvel in her diary. Miles was right: Kamala Khan was Ms Marvel.

***

It was lunchtime before the whole group was together again. They were sat in the canteen, chatting about the teachers and other students, although the topic of the seemingly never-ending superhero drama did seem to be kept being brought up. The main culprit was Kamala, who Zoe had informed Luna that Kamala was a superhero super-fan. Things seemed to be going okay, until a load of kids started retching.

“The food isn’t that bad,” Zoe muttered. The group turned their backs and ignored what was going on until they heard someone start screaming. They all suddenly stood up and dashed over to see what was going on.

A dinner lady stormed over to where a large circle was beginning to form. “You don’t need to be this ungrateful-”

She was cut off when she saw the students coughing up pale beige blobs that hit the floor and stood up, looking around the room. So, it appeared the students were throwing up sentient pizza dough. People began screaming, some running for the doors to escape as more and more blobs joined the ones already on the floor. Amongst all the chaos, the group got separated.

“What do we do?” Zoe shrieked.

“I got this,” yelled a voice from the side of the room. Ms Marvel barrelled into the centre of the room and began to tackle the blobs, trying to catch them and stop them from escaping.

“Ms Marvel!” Amadeus yelled, waving his arms around to get her attention. “Make yourself as flat and as wide as possible. Gather them all together and wrap them up”

Ms Marvel gave him a huge thumbs up. Literally, her thumbs, along with the rest of her hand were huge. Amadeus began to shove his way through the students towards the door that led back to the main building. Luna grabbed her bag and began to run after him. By the time she caught up with him, he was in one of the chemistry labs.

“What are you doing?” she shrieked.

Amadeus didn’t look up from where he was mixing chemicals. “I’m making a neutralising agent to use against the blobs. If Ms Marvel manages to keep them all in one place, then I can take them all out at once. Here, take these”. He thrust a beaker of the fluid he’d been mixing and a load of Q-tips at Luna. “Dip the ends of those in here and stick them on that tray. We’ll need throat swabs for the infected students”

Luna took them off Amadeus and began dipping the Q-tips in the solution. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “If you can make something like this using the chemicals in a high school lab, then you don’t need to be in high school”

“I was tracking down some dough that had gone missing from my Mom’s lab,” he began to explain as he measured out more chemicals, pouring them into a beaker over a Bunsen burner. “It was made using cultures created by Armin Zola. It must’ve gotten mixed in with the pizza dough and reacted with their gastrointestinal-”

“Wait, your Mom? What does she have to do with any of this?” Luna demanded. “Wait, Cho? Your Mom’s Helen Cho. That’s why you’re here, something went missing from an Avengers associated lab!”

“Yep,” Amadeus said casually. “What about you? Don’t try and lie, you do not seem as fazed by this as you should be”

“I was looking for Ms Marvel,” Luna said. “I ran into her at the Tri-State Ultra Mega Science Fair a few months back. We think she might be here”

“We?” Amadeus began to ask. “You know what, it doesn’t matter, I’m not sure I want to know. Well, you definitely found her”

“No kidding,” Luna muttered. She placed the finished Q-tips on a tray. “I’m done. What do we do now?”

“You go give those to the teachers and tell them to start distributing them amongst the students,” Amadeus instructed. “With any luck, that’ll stop any more of them being created”. He pulled a high-tech syringe out of his pocket and drew the remaining solution up into it. “I’m going to get the big blob with this”

He ran out of the room wielding the syringe in way that worried Luna slightly. She sighed and lifted the small tray and awkwardly jogged after him. “Hey!” she yelled when she spotted a teacher. She shoved the tray at him. “These have an antidote for the weird blobby stuff. Give one to every student that had the pizza. Okay?”. She waited for him to nod before running after Amadeus. She caught up with him just as he got outside, where Ms Marvel was waiting.

“I gathered all the blobs into one big blob,” Ms Marvel said as a form of explanation for her current appearance. She had completely flattened herself out and used her body to wrap around the blob.

“Make a hole and I can neutralise this thing,” Amadeus said. Ms Marvel started to do so, but the blob took advantage of the small hole and slithered out like a snake and reformed. I took off running down the street. “You go stop it, I’ll catch up”

Ms Marvel stared at him. “And just how do you intend on keeping up?” she demanded.

“Don’t worry about that, just run,” Amadeus exclaimed. Ms Marvel sighed before she took off running, taking huge steps as her legs were now ten feet long. Amadeus shoved the syringe at Luna. “Hold this,” he ordered as he began to take off his shoes.

“Dude!” Luna shrieked. “Keep your clothes on”

Amadeus rolled his eyes as he took off this trousers and then his shirt, revealing a skin-tight black suit underneath.  The sleeves were long, but the shorts only went as far as his knees. He pulled the sleeves off and the top slunk away into the belt, leaving Amadeus in just his shorts.

“How is this going to hel- oh!”. Luna cut herself off as Amadeus started to transform. His skin turned green and his muscles were growing. Soon, she was stood facing a Hulk.

“Give the syringe,” he demanded, his voice and speech the same as before he’d transformed. Luna wordlessly handed him the syringe and he took off running after Ms Marvel and the blob.

“Now what am I going to do?” Luna muttered to herself. She spotted a fire escape in an alley across the street. It was a few feet off the ground to pull the ladder down, but it went all the way to the roof. Making sure nobody saw where she was going, she dashed across the street and into the alley. She reached the bottom of the fire escape and began jumping up to grab the ladder. After a few attempts, her hand wrapped around the bottom rung and the ladder slowly descended next to her. She quickly scaled the ladder and ran as fast as she possibly could up the stairs until she reached the roof. In the distance, she could see Ms Marvel. She had flattened herself out again, but this time, had turned herself into a wall, trapping the blob inside.

“Hulk?” Ms Marvel exclaimed. Luna snorted slightly to herself, it was nice to see someone as confused as she’d been. Luna watched as the Hulk leapt forward in a powerful arc. He cleared Ms Marvel’s self-made wall with ease and crash into the blob, syringe in hand. The result was instantaneous; the blob began to collapse in on itself and Amadeus, still in his Hulk form, sank to the ground with it. A small breeze on the otherwise still day whipped up beside Luna less than a second, before disappearing as quickly as it came.

“That was weird,” stated Tommy. Luna nodded in a silent agreement. “Looks like we’ve found the first three”

***

Kamala was hidden away in the tight gap between the main school building and the sports hall, attempting to pull her own clothes on over her Ms Marvel costume. She heard voices and reached out to grab her mask, to conceal her identity. But, before she could, a sudden gust of wind blew it out of her reach.

“Hey there Ms Marvel,” said a chirpy voice behind her.

She cringed slightly and hopped around to face whoever was behind her, one leg still only partway through a trouser leg. Behind her stood Amadeus, in an outfit like the one that the Hulk had been wearing earlier, Luna and a boy with white hair that Kamala hadn’t seen before. He was holding the other by the backs of their coats.

“Dude,” Amadeus exclaimed, slightly out of breath. He pulled himself away from the boy and leant against the wall. “You’re that Speed guy”

“And you’re the Hulk,” the white haired boy quipped. Kamala awkwardly shuffled her leg fully into her trousers while the others were distracted. She turned to face them once she had got all her clothes back on.

“Can I help you guys?” she asked as she straightened out her jacket. “Because New Jersey is my turf and with all the Accords stuff still going on, I don’t really need anybody else coming in and making a mess. I can’t put my family through the chaos of being charged for hiding an unregistered Inhuman”

“So you’re Inhuman then?” Luna asked, crossing her arms across her chest with a small smirk on her face. “Good to know”

Kamala cursed slightly to herself, how could she so stupid. She looked around, trying to find either a way out or something to use to fight all of them if she had to.

Luna took a step towards her, arms held out in front of her and her palms showing in a show of peace. “Hey we’re not looking for a fight, we’re here to help,” she reassured.

“Who are you people?” Kamala demanded. “And where did you get a Hulk?”

“Hey, don’t look at me,” Amadeus protested, throwing his hands up in defeat. “I just came here to find some runaway dough, although I wasn’t expecting it in a literal sense. I have no idea who these people are”

“My name’s Luna Maxus, and this is my-”. Luna cut herself off and stared at the other boy in thought for a moment. “-friend Tommy Shepherd. He’s Speed from the Young Avengers. We’re looking for other superhumans like us. Without the Avengers, and now no S.H.I.E.L.D., the world needs someone to protect it”

“What about those people that just showed up in Hawai’i?” Amadeus demanded. “Or, if that’s too far afield, there’s always the Defenders! Right there in New York City”

“Aren’t they down a person right now though?” Kamala asked.

“Not helping,” Amadeus hissed through gritted teeth. “What I’m trying to say is that if you’re planning on saving the world by going around the Accords, then maybe coming to the person whose mom works for an Avengers associated lab and an illegal inhuman isn’t your best option”

“Yes it is,” Tommy protested. “Look, Amadeus, I’ll admit that we weren’t expecting to see you here today, we were only looking for Ms Marvel. We were sent here with a tip from Spider-Man, the one in the black suit, not the red suit”. He pulled two small scraps of paper out of his pocket and handed on each to Kamala and Amadeus. “Meet us at that time and place tonight. And Kamala, could you bring Luna’s bag?”

Kamala stared at Tommy in confusion. “What do you mea-”. She was cut off by Tommy whizzing away, taking Luna with him.

Amadeus pocketed the piece of paper. “I’ll see you there then,” he said as he walked away from Kamala, leaving her to wonder what if what she’d witnessed had just happened.

***

“Hey look who it is,” Amadeus called out as he walked into an alley in New York. Kamala was pacing in front of a door to a warehouse, looking unsure about if she was meant to be there. “Any idea what the Young Avengers are doing hiding around here?”

“Waiting for you to show up Amadeus,” came a voice through a crackly speaker by the door. “You’re ten minutes late”

Amadeus rolled his eyes as the large electric door swung open, allowing him and Kamala in. She was about to close the door when she heard a voice yelling behind her.

“Don’t close the door!” shouted the voice. She looked behind her saw Miles Morales sprinting down the alley, backpack bouncing on his shoulders with every step. He stopped when he reached her.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded when she saw him.

“Hey Kamala,” he greeted. “Long time, no see. I’m fine, thanks for asking, and how are you?”

“Confused as to why we’ve all been called here,” she said.

“Maybe, we’ll find out if we go inside,” Amadeus suggested from where he was still stood in the doorway. The three went inside the warehouse, staring at their surroundings in awe. The whole place had been completely renovated to turn it from an old warehouse for holding crates of books into a functioning place for the Young Avengers to live and operate from. Mats took up most of the back of the room and there was a small gym to one side. There was also a large kitchen and table, as well as huge, comfy looking sofas surrounding a coffee table and facing a TV. A staircase spiralled upwards to bedrooms and a long walkway ran across the top of the warehouse to a platform with a library. At the back of the room, they could see a large bank of high tech computers, camera feeds from all over the city flickering across the screens.

“This. Is. Awesome,” Kamala muttered next to Miles.

“Agreed,” he whispered back in response. “I’ve been here before, but it’s still cool”

“I’ve seen cooler,” Amadeus added, killing the mode slightly. Kamala and Miles stared at him in mild horror. “What? My mum works at an Avengers affiliated lab, I have literally been to the Avengers Compound before. Not much can live up to that. But this is still pretty good”

“Thanks, I think,” Tommy said from where he was sat on the stairs. Luna was sat behind him, resting her head in her hands, elbows pressed into her knees. Teddy and Billy were doing the dishes together in the kitchen. Kate and America were sat on a sofa together: Kate’s nose was stuck in a book and she’d propped her feet in America’s lap at the other end of the sofa; America was flicking through the channels on the TV. David and Noh-Varr were sparring at the other end of the room, David looking smugger with every time Noh crashed to the floor.

“Welcome to Young Avengers HQ!” greeted Luna. “Please enjoy your stay and don’t break any alien technology left lying around”

“Alien technology?” Miles asked in mild confusion and wonder. “You guys have actual alien technology here?”

“We have actual aliens here,” Kate confirmed without looking up from her book. Miles, Kamala and even Amadeus’s eyes bugged open at Kate’s statement. Teddy and Noh-Varr waved at them cheerfully. “They’re the aliens”

“Hate to end this lovely little tour, but why do you need us?” Amadeus asked.

Kate smirked over the top of her book. She put it down and jumped up. “Follow me,” she instructed in a cheery tone. She opened a door by the stairs and led them down another flight of stairs and into a basement. The rest of the Young Avengers were quick to follow behind them.

“Woah,” Miles muttered from behind Kamala. The room was the same size as the warehouse above, but only a third of the height. A large pile of boxes had been stacked neatly in the corner, but other than that, the room was empty.

“What is this?” Kamala asked.

“Head-quarters for your new team,” Kate explained. “That is, if you want it”

Kamala and Miles both out undignified squeaks and even Amadeus was unable to control his reactions.

“For real?” Kamala asked, bouncing on her heels slightly in excitement.

“For real,” Kate confirmed. She grinned as Kamala and Miles high fived each other and Amadeus’s face split into a grin. “Now all you guys need is a team name”

“What about the Baby Avengers?” suggested Tommy, trying very hard not to laugh. “Considering we’ve already taken Young Avengers”

“That’s already taken in my fan fic,” Kamala pointed out, as if it were an actual issue. She quickly realised everyone was staring at her. “What? I’m a nerd, no point in denying it”

“I think I’ve read that one,” Miles added. “It was good”. Kamala grinned at him.

“How about Champions?” Luna added. Everyone turned to look at her. She was sitting on the stairs in the same way she had been upstairs. She had been so quite in coming downstairs, that nobody had noticed her. “It’s better than Baby Avengers”

“Champions,” Kamala thought aloud. “I like that”

“So, you guys are in?” America asked.

The three of them looked at each other. They grinned and nodded.

“Welcome to the crazy world of being part of a, technically illegal, teenage superhero team in this lovely post-Accords world,” said David with as much enthusiasm as possible.

“So, Champions. Would you like a tour of the secret tunnels that lead come off this place?” Teddy asked. “That way, you don’t have to always enter through our base”

“I’m going to go,” Luna said, before she got dragged into the grand tour. “My parents will be wondering where I am”

Everyone silently waved her off, before turning their attention back to the newly formed Champions.

Kamala watched Luna leave from the corner of her eye, before sighing slightly. “Same here, I’d better not try and push my luck with Ammi; she keeps saying that she’s being lenient enough as it is since she found out I was Ms Marvel, and feel like spending the evening in the basement of a warehouse in New York the same day that the school got attacked by a living blob might be going too far”

“There are sentences I expect to hear. And then there’s that,” Miles commented. “I should go as well. Can we have the tour tomorrow?”

“Sure,” replied Kate. Kamala and Miles grinned at each other as they began to head up the stairs and back outside.

“So, that was fun,” grinned Amadeus. Kamala yelped slightly, she hadn’t realised Amadeus was following her and Miles outside.

“Hey, is that who I think it?” Miles asked. He pointed down the alley. A girl with long blonde hair was unlocking a door set into the wall of the building adjacent to the warehouse. She turned and looked around, making sure she wasn’t being watched. Kamala, Miles and Amadeus flattened themselves against the warehouse wall, taking advantage of the bulky door frame hiding them. She stepped through the door and stepped into a dark, unlit room, quietly closing the door behind her.

“Luna?” Amadeus asked, hoping that the others had seen that too.

“Something weird is going on with her,” Kamala commented. “What do you say Champions, want to try and find out?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will probably be the last chapter I upload for either fic before 24 Days of Ficmas begins on the 1st of December. Thanks for putting up with my incredibly unreliable uploading schedule, I promise it will get better over Christmas xx


	5. Deliberation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Champions try and decide what to do with the new information on Billy, Tommy and Luna

Tuesday the 30th of January

“We have to tell them,” Miles argued as he swung round the legs of the time-displaced dinosaur that was running through Jersey City.

“I don’t know,” Kamala sighed. She shoved the dinosaur, watching as it toppled over and crashed into the river with a satisfying splash that showered everyone in a twenty foot radius. “They didn’t tell us for a reason, maybe the rest of the Young Avengers already know”

Miles rolled his eyes as he shot more webbing at the dinosaur, stopping it from being able to stand up again.

“What are you guys arguing about?” Amadeus asked as he bounded down the street. In his arms, he was gently carrying a young girl, only about eight or so, though the pigtails on either side of her head made her seem even younger.

“We’ll explain later,” Kamala yelled over the growing noise as more people arrived on the scene. “Is that her? The inhuman that brought the dinosaur through”

Amadeus lowered her to the ground and nudged for her to go over to Kamala.

“Am I in trouble?” she asked, biting her bottom lip. “Because I didn’t mean to bring the dinosaur through”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Kamala reassured. She bent down so she was at eye level with the little girl. “You didn’t mean to, it was just your powers. When I first got my powers, I found them hard to control at first, but after a while, I got the hang of them. And you will too. But first, we need to send this dinosaur home. Maybe, if you focus really hard on her home, you can send her home”. Kamala stood up and held her hand out to the little girl. “So, wanna help?”

The little girl nodded and grabbed Kamala’s hand. The two girls headed over to where the dinosaur lay in the water, not something that Miles saw every day. Amadeus shrunk back down to normal size, the green vanishing from his skin. He grabbed his friend’s arm and dragged him under a small cluster of trees to one side, out of the sight of prying eyes and cameras.

“Seriously, what the hell have you two been whispering about?” he hissed. “Is it something to do with the Young Avengers?”

“Sort of,” Miles began. “Kamala found this creepy hidden away apartment in the tunnels underneath the warehouse. Inside, there was this photo album that is just filled with pictures of Luna, Billy, Tommy and a load of other people we didn’t recognise”

“Okay, so they’ve all known each other for a while, what’s the big deal?”

“All the photos are dated two decades from now”

***

“April Fool’s isn’t for another couple of months, you really didn’t need to go to all this trouble,” Amadeus joked as he flicked through the photo album. It was a couple of hours after the dinosaur incident and the Champions were all sat round a table together in McDonalds.

“I’m telling you, this is real,” Kamala insisted as she slurped on her sprite.

Out of the corner of his eye, Miles spotted something moving down the street. Turning in his seat, he watched as the other Spider-Man swung by, closely followed by Iron Man. “Did you guys-”. The other two shushed him before he could finish.

“How long have you guys known?” Amadeus asked.

“Kamala found the photos when the others went away just before Christmas,” Miles replied. “She told me just after the New Year”

“And you went a whole month without telling me, thanks guys”. He paused for a moment before asking the question that was on all their minds. “Do you think the other Young Avengers know?”

“We have no idea,” Kamala admitted. “Honestly, we don’t know anything about what’s going on; the Young Avengers aren’t exactly keeping us in the loop. I don’t think they even intended on us ever knowing that they know where the Avengers are”

“So, what do we do?” Amadeus asked.

***

Wednesday the 14th of February

“I still think we should tell them,” Miles yelled to the others as he swung around the bridge, wrapping one of the flying-rat-vulture-things that had escaped from the lab of a nearby evil scientist in webbing.

Amadeus leapt into the air and hit three of the from their collision course with a school bus. “Are you two insane?” he demanded. “They probably all know and haven’t told us for a reason. We’ll lose our base in their basement, which really makes us sound like some dude who won’t move out of our parents’ house”

“Please don’t phrase it like that,” Kamala complained as she reached up and grabbed the falling scientific mistake from the sky, her arms over twenty feet long. “And I think I’m beginning to agree with Spidey on this”

“Agree with me on what?” asked an unfamiliar voice. Kamala screeched in shock as the original Spider-Man landed next to her. “Are you guys the Champions, because I think you’re all awesome”

Amadeus and Miles finished webbing up the last of the hybrid monsters before joining the other two. “What’s going on?” Miles asked, staring at the other Spider-Man. “When did he get here?”

“Maybe we should talk somewhere else”

***

“What were you guys talking about on the bridge?” the Spider-Man in the red suit asked. The four heroes were stood on top of a building overlooking the bridge. Police were carting away the crazed scientist and an overwhelmed looking animal control were rounding up the subdued creatures. “I heard you say my name earlier, but I’ve never met you before in my life”

Miles folded his arms over his chest. “Hey, you’re not the only Spider-Man”

“Oh, okay. Not me. I’ll get out of your way, I’m sure you’ve got important Champions business to be getting on with,” he stammered and began to step towards the edge of the building. He raised his hand as if to shoot a web but paused. “Were you bitten by a radioactive spider?”

“How did you know that?” Miles asked suspiciously.

“That’s what happened to me, must be a lot more common bug-related injury than I thought,” Spider-Man explained.

“Wait!” Kamala yelled before he had the chance to swing away. Her teammates stared at her, shocked by her sudden outburst. “Do you want to join us? I mean, the Champions is always open to new members”

“Thanks, but I’m kinda a reserve Avenger of sorts,” he said in a bragging tone. “Like, I won’t go with them on all of their missions, but if something big comes up, then they know where they can find me, like Mr Stark-”

“We get the idea,” Kamala interrupted. “See you around Spider-Man”

He grinned at her before leaping off the building, shooting a web ahead of him and swinging away from the Champions. The three that were left went and stood at the edge and watched as he vanished around a corner.

“Was it just me, or did he sound even younger than us?” Amadeus asked.

***

Monday the 26th of February

Kamala rushed into homeroom seconds before the bell, her teacher hot on her heels.

“Well done on making it on time,” Mike whispered to her. Kamala shot her friend a fake glare as she slumped down into her seat.

The corner of her pocket buzzed slightly as the teacher began to call out names at the front. Making sure nobody was looking, she slid her phone out of her pocket and discretely opened up the Champions group chat.

 **Miles:** I still think we should tell them

Kamala chewed on her lip slightly in thought before shooting a reply back.

 **Kamala:** I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I think I have to agree with Miles

 **Miles:** YES! TWO AGAINST ONE!!!!!

 **Miles:** We’re telling them

 **Kamala:** Hey, we agreed that we’d decide this unanimously as a team

 **Kamala:** What do you think Amadeus?

 **Amadeus:** First of all, I’d like to say that is a very long word for this time in the morning

 **Miles:** Your name isn’t _that_ long

 **Amadeus:** I MEANT UNANIMOUSLY

 **Amadeus:** But you guys are right, we have to tell them about what we found

 **Kamala:** Meet you at the base at 10 on Saturday

 **Miles:** Will do

 **Amadeus:** See you then

Kamala smiled and slid her phone back into her pocket. She let out a small sigh of relief but couldn’t ignore the ball of tension beginning to grow inside her. While she was happy that they’d finally been able to decide what to do, she couldn’t help but dread actually telling the Young Avengers.

***

Saturday the 3rd of March

Kamala stood outside the entrance to the base, hugging the photo album to her chest tightly. Miles had arrived just after her and was nervously pacing up down the alley. They were waiting on Amadeus, the three of them having agreed to enter and confront the Young Avengers together.

“Finally,” Miles whined. Kamala looked up and saw Amadeus strolling down the alley. “You took your time”

“Whatever,” Amadeus muttered under his breath as he unlocked the door, swinging it open to allow the others in.

They were met by a general chorus of hellos as they entered. Kate looked up from where she and America were studying a set of floor plans. “What’ve you got there?” she asked curiously.

Luna looked over from the sofa at Kate’s words. Her eyes widened in shock and she hit Tommy lightly in the arm. “Where did you get that?” she demanded. “That’s mine, I’ve been looking everywhere for that”

“Figured you would be,” Kamala said. “Nice photos, lovely looking family. Quick question though: who the hell are they?”

“Luna, you don’t have to answer that,” Teddy snapped. He began to stalk over to the Champions and snatched the album from Kamala’s hands. “She doesn’t have to tell you anything. Or any of us for that matter. What right do we have to knowing any of this?”

“Because your boyfriend is in half those photos,” Kamala yelled back.

Teddy went pale very quickly. He opened the book and began to look through, his face unreadable as he took in each picture.

“Teddy,” Billy began as he took a step towards him.

“You never told me any of this,” Teddy whispered. “None of it. Not ever. Why didn’t you tell?”

Billy opened his mouth to speak, but Tommy interrupted him before he could. “Just give up lil bro. It’s over, they’ve figured it out just like Mom said they would”

“Yeah,” Luna piped up from the sofa. “Aunt Wanda is normally right about these kind of things”


	6. The Maximoff Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Young Avengers and Champions learn the truth about Maximoff family

“I’m sorry,” Kate spluttered after a moment of silence. “Did you just say Aunt Wanda?”

“Please tell me you mean someone other than Wanda Maximoff?” Teddy begged. He tried to meet his boyfriend’s eyes, but Billy looked away. “You don’t, do you? How? How is this even possible? It shouldn’t be, unless… no. No. that isn’t possible”

“I presume you’re thinking about the possibility of us being time travellers, and then immediately dismissing because you think it sounds insane,” Tommy asked. Teddy nodded, relieved that Tommy also thought it sounded insane. “Because that’s exactly right”

“You seem to be enjoying yourself way too much Tommy,” Luna joked, trying to make light of the situation.

“Okay, you are going to explain exactly why you have travelled back in time,” America ordered. “And you’re also going to explain this weird family situation that you’ve got going on. And none of us are leaving this building until we have answers, because you have been lying to us for far too long”

“Tommy’s telling the truth, we are here from the future,” Billy began to explain. “We were sent back because the future, it’s… well, it went to hell. And it’s our family’s fault. Me and Tommy came back a few years ago to try and change what happens. Luna joined us because things were beginning to get worse back home. We needed back up”

“And Luna is who?” David said. “And who are you really, because you just admitted that everything you’ve ever said to us has been based off one huge lie”

The three shared a look before turning back to the rest of the group. Luna spoke first. “You might want to sit down, this could take a while.

***

Tommy, Billy and Luna ended up squished together on the smaller of the sofas. The Young Avengers sat on the sofa and armchairs opposite, facing their teammates down. The Champions were awkwardly crowded into the into the back on high stools stolen from the kitchen table.

“So, you were saying,” Kamala prompted. “About how you’ve been lying to us”

“Listen, we’re sorry. But you have to understand why we did it,” Tommy pleaded. “We’re trying to save our family”

“And who are your family exactly?” America asked.

“Me and Tommy are twins,” Billy said. “Our parents are Wanda Maximoff and Vision. Please don’t ask us how, we don’t know, and to be honest, we don’t really want to think about it”

“And who’s Luna?” Kate asked. “Is she just a family friend like you said, or what?”

“I’m a Maximoff as well,” Luna explained. “Tommy and Billy are my paternal cousins”

“Paternal?” said David in a confused voice. “I thought that Wanda’s brother was dead”

“Yeah, that did happen,” Luna said, smirking slightly to herself. “But Cap told him to walk it off, so he did”

The others looked at each other in confusion, still not really understanding what was happening. Teddy glanced over at his boyfriend, hoping for some kind of explanation.

“What she means is Uncle Pietro was resurrected a few months before me and Tommy were born,” he explained. “We’ve known him our whole lives”

“Right, so, just making sure I’ve got this straight. All of you are Maximoffs. You two are twins and your parents are a reality warper and syntheziod,” Kamala said, pointing to Tommy and Billy. She turned to look at Luna. “And your dad is a speedster who is currently dead. What about your mom?”

“She is the younger sister of the queen of the Inhumans,” Luna said. “I’m technically royalty”

“You said you need to save your family. How does coming back here help that?” David asked.

“Where... when we come from, everything involving super-humans has gone to hell, especially for mutants,” Luna started.

“What’s a mutant?” Teddy asked.

Tommy, Billy and Luna all stared at him in confusion for a moment before Tommy decided to break the silence. “I keep forgetting that the government was still keeping mutants a secret at this time. Mutants are people born with the mutant X-gene. It gets triggered sometime around puberty, sometimes earlier, in a moment of heightened emotion and gives the person powers. Mutations are the next stage of genetic evolution, so naturally the second the human government caught wind of this, they covered it up and had people killed. They felt threatened and lashed out and it is still happening over twenty years in the future”

“There’s been anti-mutant legislation for years,” Luna continued. “But things started to go really bad about sixteen years ago, well sixteen years ago for us”

***

“Lorna, please don’t do this,” Wanda begged her sister. “You’ll get hurt and Erik might not even be there”

“You don’t get it!” Lorna yelled. “You have another family. Clint, Laura, Cooper, Lila, Nathaniel and your kids. Hell, you even got Pietro back. But it’s different for me. My mom died when I was fourteen and I haven’t seen my dad since I was sixteen. He might be there today, and I can’t risk missing him. I’m going and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. You’re not stupid enough try”

Wanda watched with a heavy heart as her sister stormed out of the Avengers compound, before turning back to find Anya and Pietro, hoping that they’d be able to stop their sister instead.

***

“Where was Lorna going?” America asked.

“I’d also like to ask who exactly Lorna and Anya are?” Kamala added.

“Anya Eisenhardt is Mom and Uncle Pietro’s older full sister,” Billy explained. “And Lorna Dane is their younger half-sister”

“Aunt Lorna was going to a protest against a new ant-mutant legislation that congress was trying to pass. I don’t remember which one, there’s so many that they’ve kinda all blurred together,” Luna said, shaking her head in confusion. “She’s heard that Granddad might be their and went to find him. Aunt Wanda didn’t want her to go because she knew that there would be anti-mutant groups there as well and didn’t want her to get hurt”

“Why didn’t Wanda go with her?” Kate asked. “Surely then she could’ve had more time to try and talk her out of it and protect her if she needed to”

“She was pregnant,” Tommy said, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth slightly. “Our little half-sister, well one of them anyway. Talia Josephine Wagner; although we just call her TJ. We have another sister on Dad’s side, Viv Vision. She was a twin as well, but we don’t talk about that”

“So, Wanda couldn’t go because she didn’t want to risk anything bad happening to her baby,” David confirmed. “I’m guessing something bad happened anyway”

***

“Sonya! Clarice! John! Marcos!” Lorna called out as she rushed through the crowds. “Over here”. She ducked under a sign and joined the rest of her friends from the mutant underground. She hugged the two girls before going over to Marcos, who ducked down slightly to press a quick kiss to her lips.

“How much trouble did you run into on your way out?” he asked.

Lorna rolled her eyes. “Wanda was adamant that I shouldn’t go, but it’s not like there’s anything she can do to stop me right now. Pietro’s off on a date with Crystal on the other side of the world. She’s probably told Anya though, so I’d say I’ve got another hour max before she comes to drag me back to the Avengers compound. If I don’t find my Dad today, then I don’t know if I’ll have another chance”

“If we split up, we’ll be able to cover more ground,” Clarice suggested. The others nodded in agreement. John and Clarice were about to head of one way and Lorna and Marcos another, when Sonya looped her arms through Lorna and Clarice’s.

“Sorry boys,” she apologised. “But I thought I’d take the girls for once”

The three of them grinned as they headed off into the crowd, leaving John and Marcos behind.

***

Forty-five minutes into their search, Lorna heard her phone ring. She sighed when she saw the caller ID but answered anyway.

“Where the hell are you?” Anya demanded. Lorna could hear the sound of the loud crowd in the background of the call.

“Damn, I thought I’d have at least another ten minutes before you got here,” Lorna joked, hoping that her sister wouldn’t kill her.

“I don’t understand how you can do this Lorna,” Anya began to nag. “Despite everything you have ever done, this still somehow manages to be the most irresponsible thing you have ever done in your life. And right now, of all times! You are so close to joining the Avengers. They want you and you are damn good at it. You can’t do something stupid like this and throw that all away. I know you’ve been part of the Mutant Underground for years, but this can’t-”

“Anya, shut up,” Lorna interrupted. “I think I can see him. He’s here. Oh my god, Dad’s here”

Anya didn’t respond for a moment. “Tell me where you are, and I’ll find you. Both of you”

“I’m by the Sokovia monument,” Lorna said. “I’ll see you in a minute”. She hung up the phone looked over at Sonya and Clarice. “I need to…”

“We heard,” Sonya explained. “I called the guys, they’re on their way. Do you want us to come with you?”

Lorna nodded shakily, wringing her hands in a nervous fashion. “Can we wait for the others first?”

Sonya nodded and rubbed her friends arm supportively. Clarice muttered something Marcos under her breath, earning her a jab to the ribs from Sonya. The three girls remained huddled against the statue until Marcos and John shoved their way through the crowd to them. Sonya shot Lorna a look before the group began to head across the street lined with protesters. Lorna felt Marcos’s hand slip into hers’, but her eyes remained locked on her father. He hadn’t moved since she’d spotted him. She couldn’t quite believe it; after all these years, she was so close to reuniting her family.

Marcos’s muttered curse under his breath snapped broke Lorna’s good mode.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him.

“Watchdogs,” he muttered. “They’re here”

John followed Marcos line of sight to where the group of Watchdogs were beginning to pile out of an alley. “EVERYONE GET DOWN!” he yelled. The crowd ducked to the ground as the bullets began to cut through the crowd, their piercing sound filling the air.

Moments after the bullets stopped, Lorna felt a hand rest on her shoulder. She looked, blinking against the light. “Dad? Is that you?”

“Lorna,” Erik whispered. “Lorna, are you okay?”

She nodded as he helped her back to her feet. “Did you see where they went?” she asked.

He pointed after them. “A couple of others ran after them, I didn’t see their faces”

“It was John and Clarice,” Sonya added. “Oh god, they’re gonna get killed. She doesn’t pass as human. They’ll shoot her the second they see her”. Marcos and Sonya began to sprint after their friends. Lorna went to follow them, but a hand on her arm stopped her from going.

“Lorna, what are you doing?” he demanded. “You can’t go there, they’ll kill you”

“And they’ll kill the others if we don’t,” she argued. “Now isn’t the time for father-daughter catch up. We need to go there and help whoever we can. We can control metal remember. Anya’s on the way and then she can take us back to the compound where Wanda can yell at me for hours. THEN WE CAN GO THROUGH ALL THE DRAMA THAT YOU SEEM TO BE INSITING ON RIGHT NOW, OKAY?”

Erik nodded and the two ran after Marcos and Sonya. “Those Avengers really got through to you with that whole heroic thing, didn’t they?”

Lorna sighed and turned to glare at him. “Is now _really_ the time for jokes?”

They turned the corner just as the Watchdogs reloaded their guns. Erik raised his hands to the guns and curled his fingers to jam the bullets inside the guns. Nothing happened. “They’re using non-metal bullets,” he shouted to Lorna. “We’ve got nothing to fight with”

“Then don’t fight,” she said. “Use what we can to shield the people and block the Watchdogs in, at least until backup arrives”

Erik nodded and began to follow her instructions. The two of them ripped doors off cars and merged them together to form a shield around as many civilians as they could. Lorna grinned at her Dad before looking around the street to find her friends. Marcos and Sonya were helping people run away from the gunmen. Clarice was creating portals that opened above the Watchdogs; John was jumping through and punching them out. Things seemed to be going their way, until the gunmen turned their guns onto the mutants fighting back.

John turned and wrapped his arms around Clarice, using his invulnerable body to shield hers. Sonya and Marcos threw themselves to the ground, rolling behind a car to protect themselves. A young girl ran at the Watchdogs, swirling beams of energy forming around her fingertips. A bullet flew forward through the air and pierced her body. The energy in her hands pulsed slightly before exploding outwards. The wave whipped through Lorna’s hair, sending her staggering backwards, but was able to stay on her feet. Others weren’t so lucky. Several people collapsed to the ground and the trees lining the road began to slowly burn. Everyone seemed to freeze for a moment before the Watchdogs continued firing on the crowd.

For a lot of people, they’d say what happened next went so quick that they didn’t know what was happening until it was over. Lorna wishes she could say that, then it’d would’ve all been over and done with and she’d know that there had been nothing that she could do to change it.

Others would say that time seemed to slow down. Lorna wishes that would’ve happened as well. Then she might have had time to act, maybe things would’ve gone differently and it all would’ve been okay.

But for Lorna, time didn’t change at all. Every painful second went by as it normally would. The guns were firing from all round now. She knew that she would likely be hit soon. But that was okay, as long as she got the other mutants to safety first. She heard someone scream her name. Someone familiar. Somebody threw themselves against her, using their body as a shield. There was a dull thud as a bullet hit the person leaning against her. The body collapsed against her and the two fell to the floor. Sirens filled the air and the Watchdogs began to scatter, leaving the bullet ridden crowds behind.

“Lorna,” croaked the body pressed against her, voice painfully weak.

Lorna gasped in horror when she recognised the voice. She slipped herself from underneath and cradled her sister close to her body. “Anya,” she whispered. “Anya, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have come. You were right. I’m so sorry”

Anya reached up and tucked Lorna’s hair back behind her ear, leaving streaks of blood behind. “It’s okay,” she stuttered, coughing slightly. Small trickles of blood began to pool at the corner of her mouth. “I love you, okay? Don’t forget that. And I need you tell the others”

“Tell them yourself,” Lorna sobbed. The blood on her cheeks was mingling with the tears that were beginning to spill from her eyes. “You can do it yourself when we get you home okay? You’re not giving up on me yet”

“Lorna don’t,” Anya pleaded. She grabbed her sister’s hand and gripped tightly. “We both know that I’m not going to make it that far. Just tell the others I love them. Tell Billy and Tommy that Auntie Anya loves them, and she misses them. And don’t let anyone beat themselves about not being here. None of us knew what was going to happen. Especially Wanda and Pietro, don’t let them hate themselves. I don’t want that”

“Lorna!” Erik yelled. He ran over to where he could see his daughter, Lorna’s friends right behind him.

“Daddy?” Anya croaked, looking round to find her father’s voice. Erik collapsed to his knees when he saw her covered in blood. “She did it, she found you”

Erik leant over and softly sang an old Sokovian lullaby as he stroked her hair. Anya’s mouth moved slowly, silently singing along with her father, no longer enough air left in her lungs to make the sound.

Lorna choked out a sob when she felt Anya go still in her arms. “Anya, no. Anya please,” she cried. She pulled Anya’s body closer to her, burying her face in her hair as she wept. Sirens blared around them and the emergency services flooded the scene. A paramedic rushed over when he saw the group, but John held him back. There was no point and the family just needed some space.

***

The Watchdog attack on the mutant protest and subsequent energy blast killed 23 people including a family member of the Avengers who was a staff member at the compound in what became known as the 7/15 incident.

***

Everyone stared at the Maximoffs in shock, nobody really knowing what to say.

Teddy was the first to do anything. He wordlessly stood up and moved over to sit with his boyfriend. Billy leant against his side and sucked his breath into stop himself from crying.

“That was sixteen years ago for us,” Luna said. “I hadn’t even been born then, but what happened that day messed up our family for years”

“And the Watchdogs just didn’t stop,” Tommy sighed. “It wasn’t enough that came for Auntie Anya. They attacked the compound. Mom got hurt and lost control of her powers. There was a huge energy explosion and people died”

“Who?” Kate asked.

“Scott Lang, Clint Barton and Vision,” Billy listed. “One of our uncles, our Granddad and our Dad”

“It got worse afterwards,” Luna added. “Something happened to the timeline. It went completely whack for about six months and when it ended, Aunt Lorna got hurt. She’s sick, like really sick. Dying”

“So, why’d you come back to our time?” America asked. “If your family is that much of a mess, why did you leave them?”

“Because we think we can change time,” Billy explained. “Everything bad that happened traces back to something that went down about five months before 7/15”

“What?” David asked.

“There was this girl, we don’t know much, it’s all buried behind a tonne of red tape,” Tommy started. “Her friend was a mutant with the power to send things through time. The girl got sent back and reappeared a few days later. But she was a couple of years older. Oh, and covered in blood and keeled over dead”

“Who was she?” Noh-Varr asked.

“That’s the fun part, we don’t,” Tommy laughed. “We have no idea. We have come back to try and stop some girl from getting killed at some point in this decade and we have no idea who she is or when she’s going to get sent back to or where she’ll get sent. But, when she arrived back, she was wearing a superhero costume”

“So, to save your family, we need to make sure that we find a time displaced wannabe teenage superhero and make sure she doesn’t die before she has to go home again, correct?” Kate checked.

Billy stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“We’re going to help, whatever way we can,” Kate said. “Your family needs saving and so does the rest of the world from the sound of it. So, we’re going to help. Because we’re the Young Avengers, and Champions, and that’s our goddamn job. But also, because we’re your friends and we will do whatever we can to help you”

“Speaking of the Champions, they’ve been awfully quiet for the last hour,” Teddy pointed out.

“There was this thing we dealt with a few weeks ago, with a dinosaur,” Kamala said quietly. Everyone stared at her for a moment, unsure about what that had to do with anything. “Like a time displaced dinosaur. If that girl is the one that sent her friend back, we have a lead”

Everyone stared at Kamala for a moment before Luna burst out in a grin. “YES!” she whooped. “Finally, we are getting somewhere. We gonna save our family”

***

Everyone began to go their separate ways after the Maximoffs finished their story. The Champions each had to be getting home and America, Kate and Noh-Varr had gone downstairs to see Luna’s place.

“I’m going out,” Tommy declared as he pulled his jacket on.

“Wait,” David demanded. He grabbed his coat and ran after Tommy.

Billy watched the two of them go before turning back to his boyfriend. “Well, looks like it’s just the two of us”

Teddy shot back a forced smile and curled in slightly on himself on the sofa. “Why did you never tell me?” he asked after a moment.

Billy closed his eyes and sighed for a moment before heading over to sit on the other end of the sofa. “I wish I could’ve, I really do. And I guess I don’t have a real reason for not telling you, not really”

“What do you mean by that?” Teddy asked.

“If I told you, then I would’ve had to admit to myself that it was all real,” Billy explained. “If we don’t do this, then I go back to the future and my family is still broken. Granddad, Dad, Uncle Scott and Auntie Anya will all still be dead, and Auntie Lorna is almost definitely going to die. Do you know why they sent Luna back in the first place? Because Auntie Lorna is getting worse. If we don’t fix this soon, we’re going to lose her”

Teddy slid down the sofa and pulled Billy close to him. A small damp patch started to form on his t-shirt where Billy was leaning. The two sat in silence for a few minutes.

“I am really sorry that I didn’t tell you,” Billy apologised again.

“I forgive you,” Teddy answered immediately. “You just wanted to protect your family”

“I wanted to protect you too,” Billy said. “If we do this, if we win and save my family, I go home. I leave this time period and go back to my family. I have to leave you and I was too scared to even think about that. I have never loved anyone in my life the way I love you and losing that would break me. I can’t imagine my life without you”

“That’s good,” Teddy said. “Because, sorry Kaplan, well, Maximoff I guess, you’re stuck with me. Til death do us part”

“Teddy Altman, did you just propose to me?” Billy asked.

***

“I’m going out,” Tommy declared as he pulled his jacket on.

“Wait,” David demanded. He grabbed his coat and ran after Tommy. He jogged down street to catch up with him.

“I don’t want to talk,” Tommy huffed and continued stalking down the street.

“If you really didn’t then you would’ve want to, then you would’ve run away from me,” David argued. He reached out and grabbed Tommy by the wrist. “Please just talk to me”

Tommy stared at David for a moment before grabbing the other boy into his arms and running off.  He stopped moments later on a small hill a few miles outside of the city. He settled David on his feet before sitting down on the ground.

“Billy gets all sad whenever he thinks about what happened to Auntie Anya,” Tommy said, staring out at the view, not making eye contact with David. “He doesn’t remember her, but he hates that we didn’t get grow up with her. Anya was only the start of us losing our family, but he doesn’t remember her”

“And you do,” David said, more of a statement than a fact. He went and settled down next to Tommy. “You remember her and what happened and so this is so much worse on you”

Tommy nodded. “I was two years old, almost three. I’d heard Mom and Auntie Lorna arguing about something earlier that day and then Auntie Lorna left. Auntie Anya left not long after that. They must’ve seen what’d happened at the protest on the TV because me and Billy got sent off to our rooms. I saw Auntie Lorna get back with the others. She was covered in blood and she was shaking. And Auntie Anya wasn’t with them. A few minutes later, I heard a scream coming from the kitchen. It was Mom. I ran off to find her, and when I got there, she was on her knees, sobbing. I didn’t understand what was happening. They told me Auntie Anya had gotten hurt and she wasn’t coming home, but I still didn’t get it. I was a little kid and my family had just been ripped apart. And Billy doesn’t remember what that was like”

David reached out to touch Tommy’s arm reassuringly but pulled away at the last moment; in the time he’d known Tommy, he’d never been one to show much care for physical affection. “I’m sorry. I don’t really know what else I can say, and nothing I say will make you feel better or change what has happened, but I truly am sorry”

“Thanks,” Tommy muttered, still not looking at David.

“I… care about you a lot,” he said, careful over his phrasing, not wanting to make the situation uncomfortable for either of them. “And I want you to know that I’m here for you no matter-”

David was cut off when Tommy closed the distance between the two of them, pulling David in close as he kissed him. Tommy’s hands crept up to cup David’s face, while David knotted his fingers in Tommy’s hair. The two pulled apart after a moment, foreheads resting together.

Tommy let out a weak laugh. “Sorry. I’d been meaning to do that for a while, and with everything you just said, now seemed like the time”

David softly ran his fingers over Tommy’s cheeks. “Hey, don’t apologise. Nice to finally know which one of us was going to make the first move”

“Oh god, the others are going to tease us about this for ages, aren’t they?” Tommy groaned as he pulled away from David.

“We were worse than Kate and America,” David sighed. He looked out over the city. “Do you want to head back soon?”

“I’m good right here for a little longer,” Tommy said, resting his head against David’s shoulder.

David smiled and intertwined his fingers with Tommy’s. “Me too,” he said, resting his head on top of Tommy’s.

***

Kamala and Miles, with Amadeus being dragged along behind them, sprinted back into the Young Avengers base mere moments after Tommy and David got back. Kamala clocked their joined hands almost instantly.

“That’s new,” she said, he speech coming out between gasps for air. “But I’ll ask later”

“What’s wrong?” Luna asked.

“We found her,” Miles exclaimed. “We think we know who the girl was that got sent back”

“Really?” Tommy said in an excited tone. “How?”

“We tracked the little girl that brought the dinosaur,” Amadeus explained. “She was here on holiday with her family, they had Hamilton tickets, but she’s from San Francisco”

“We hacked into her mom’s Facebook and you’ll never guess who she’s friends with,” Kamala grinned.

“Who?” everyone yelled at once.

“Cassie Lang,” Kamala replied. “As in Ant Man’s daughter”

“No wonder if hit the Avengers so much when she was killed, she was family,” Tommy said.

“So, we have to somehow track down a time displaced child superhero, who is the child of a superhero and stop her from getting killed?” Luna asked. “Great, just great. This is getting more and more impossible with every day”

“But it’s not,” Kate said. Everyone turned to look at her. “Yes, this is going to be hard, but before you thought it was just the three of you that had to deal with it. You have all of us now, and whoever else we pick up along the way. Don’t forget, we also have the actual Avengers as backup if we need them, they’ll want to save Cassie and change the future as much as we do”

“Thanks Kate,” Billy smiled. “And all of you. I don’t know how we can ever repay you for what you’re doing”

“You don’t have to,” Kate reassured. “We’re your friends and we’re going to help you. No matter the cost”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *jazz hands* ta-da. I can't say how excited I am to post this chapter, I've been plotting this for a while and the timeline has been really fun to create and have some fun with. To everyone who watches The Gifted and recognised the characters from that, look out for them as they will be cropping up in future chapters.
> 
> I'm also still brainstorming ideas for baby names for Bruce and Nat in Life On The Farm, so please let me know if you have any suggestions.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed the chapter and I'll post a new update as soon as I can xx


	7. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whilst the Young Avengers and Champions are searching for Cassie Lang, they are not the only young heroes in the city searching for a way to prevent the future

“Welcome to the New York Mutant Underground!” Kitty declared as they walked through the door. “Maybe someone here knows where Magneto is”

“If he is here, we’re leaving someone behind,” Shuri said as the group began to make their way through the building towards the office. “We can’t fit anyone else in the car”

The group had made it as far as the door of the office when they realised they had a problem.

“Where’s Lorna?” Clarice asked. Everyone turned and looked around, shocked to see they’d missed a member of the group disappearing.

“Dammit Lorna,” Wanda muttered. She looked over at Shuri. “We have to find her. You and I will go out and look for her. The rest of you stay here and try and find out what you can about Magneto”

The others nodded and Shuri and Wanda hurried back out of the building and onto the street.

“It’ll probably be best if we split up,” Wanda suggested.

“Meet you at Parker’s in two hours,” Shuri said before she hurried off down the street. 

Wanda didn’t know how she knew where Spider-Man lived, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She walked away down the street in the opposite direction to Shuri, off to find her sister.

***

After an hour, Wanda ended up outside an old warehouse, the entrance tucked down the side of an alley. She stood by the door and knocked lightly. A camera positioned above the doorframe turned and she could hear the sound of it zooming in on her face. She stared straight back at it, making sure whoever was on the other end knew who she was. Moments later, the door swung open to reveal a shocked looking Billy Maximoff-Barton.

“Hey,” he greeted, the shocked look never leaving his face. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just walking past, and I couldn’t stop myself, I had to come see you,” she explained. “Can I come in?”

Billy stepped back and allowed her in. She walked past him and further into the base, taking in her surroundings as she went. Behind her, Billy dashed into the kitchen. Out of the corner of her eye, Wanda could see him send a quick text on his phone as he poured four drinks.

“Here,” he said as he passed her one of the drinks. He led her over to the sofas and sat down. He muttered something under his breath and the other drinks from the kitchen appeared suddenly on the coffee table in a flash of blue light.

“Who else is coming?” Wanda asked.

As if they’d been waiting for her to ask that question, Tommy and Luna suddenly appeared through a door in the corner. From what Wanda could see, the door led downstairs. Tommy’s face broke into a wide grin when he saw and sped across the room. He stopped when he reached Wanda, wrapping his arms around her over the back of the sofa. He pulled back when he felt her tense up under his grasp.

“Sorry,” he apologised. “I didn’t mean to freak you out, I’ve just missed you, well, the you we know”

He and Luna sat down with Billy on the sofa opposite Wanda. An awkward silence fell over the group.

“Why are you in New York?” Luna asked as she tried to break the tension.

“Lorna was going to run away from the farmhouse and try and find our father by herself,” Wanda explained, smiling lightly at her sister’s antics. “I caught her as she tried to sneak out and so did Shuri. The three of us left during the night”

“I bet Nana and Gramps weren’t happy when they realised you weren’t there the next morning,” Tommy joked.

“I called them from Lorna’s house and they didn’t even seem that bothered that we’d gone,” Wanda said sadly. “They weren’t going to try and come after us either. I haven’t spoken to them since. I sent them a letter a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn’t give them a return address for that, not while I’m at the school. So, my adoptive family were part of your lives growing up”

“Yeah, they were,” Luna confirmed. “It was a little weird on my end though because my Dad was missing all that time that you had with them, so he was never as close with them as you were, but I was as close with them as Tommy and Billy are. And TJ and Viv”

“Who?” Wanda asked, having not heard those names before.

“Our half-sisters,” Tommy explained. “TJ’s yours and Viv’s Dad’s. She had a brother, Vin, but we don’t talk about what happened to him or their mom”

“Must’ve been weird, having three granddads,” Wanda joked. The three sat opposite shot each other mildly worried looks. “What?”

“Dad’s dad died years before we were born,” Billy said. “And we technically don’t have a grandmother on that side of the family. It’s not like we really missed out on much from that side of the family though. You didn’t exactly get on with him, pretty sure you had to use your powers against him once”

“Yeah, and he was awful to my Dad,” Luna added.

“Any chance of you telling me who your Dad is?” Wanda asked. The others shook their heads. “Well, it was worth a shot”. She finished the last of her drink and stood up. “I would honestly love to stay here and talk to you for ages, but I have a missing sister trying to find a missing parent to find”

The others stood and walked with her to the door. Luna quickly hugged before she walked out the door.

“I’m going back to my place,” she said to Tommy. “Meet you there”

Wanda waited for her to head back through the door she and Tommy had come through earlier. “She lives down there?”

“She has a secret apartment hidden down in a secret tunnel system,” Billy said as if that offered a proper explanation as to why. “But now that the others know about our family, she spends a lot more time up here”

Wanda pulled both of her boys into a tight hug. “I’m sorry that I freaked out when you did that earlier Tommy, but I just want to let you both know that I’m proud of you. I know that sounds a bit weird considering I haven’t done anything in the way of having you, let alone raising you yet, but just from what I’ve seen of you two, it looks like I’m going to do a great job. I’m sure the me that you’ve left in the future is proud of you as well”. She stood on her toes to press a quick kiss to their foreheads. She looked at the clock on the wall behind them. “Quick question though, do you happen to know the way to Peter Parker’s apartment? That is if you know who he is”

“Don’t worry, we know who Spider-Man is”

***

Peter sat awkwardly next to MJ on the sofa in his living room. The pair had been studying but had taken a break for lunch and were now watching TV. MJ had sat right next to Peter instead of at the other end of the sofa like he thought she would and now he didn’t know what to do. Like, what do you do with your arms when you're sat next to a girl that you definitely don’t like, except maybe you do? Where do they go? On your lap? Or should he try and discretely wrap his arm around her shoulder? Or would she kill him for that?

Before he had the chance to make up his mind, there was a loud knocking at the door.

“That’ll be the rest of the AcaDec team,” MJ said. She jumped to her feet and went to let them in as Peter cleared up their stuff from lunch. “Erm, Peter. It’s not the team”

Peter stuck his head out of the kitchen to see MJ lead Wanda into the room. The older girl stopped when she saw Peter and shot him a mischievous grin. “Is this the MJ you keep talking about?”

“Why are you here?” Peter demanded. “Why did you leave Iowa? Tony said that you’d left the safe house months ago, in the middle of the night and everything”

“Came with my half-sister and a princess to try and track down my missing birth father to try and avoid a terrible future that my time travelling kids warned me about,” she hurriedly explained. “Why are you here alone with the girl you have a crush on?”

“None of that made any sense,” Peter exclaimed.

“You like me?” MJ asked, her cheeks flushing red. “And how does Wanda Maximoff know?”

“Why is that what you’re focusing on?” Peter half shrieked. “There is an Avenger, a literal Avenger in my apartment and you’re more interested in my crush on you!” 

“You guys are Avenger, this kinda shit happens all the time,” MJ reasoned. “Also, you did just acknowledge your crush as well”. She laughed as Peter began to flush a bright red as the realisation over what he’d said crossed his face. “Hey, you’re turning the same red as your suit” 

“What are you talking about?” Peter stuttered. “I don’t have a bright red suit” 

“Sure you don’t Spider-Man,” MJ said sarcastically. 

Wanda snorted with laughter from where she’d sat on the sofa to watch the two bickering teens. “I think she may be onto you” 

“How do you two know each other?” MJ asked, pointing between Peter and Wanda. “Because the only time that Spider-Man met the Avengers, they were fighting and you two were on opposite sides” 

“Tony brought him and Pepper to our safe house for a month last summer,” Wanda explained. “They stayed there with May over Christmas last year as well. He was the only other person even close to my age I’d seen in months and we’ve kept in touch since” 

“You said you had a half-sister,” MJ said. “Where was she?” 

“Didn’t even know she existed until January,” Wanda explained. “Or that my full sister was alive. It’s a long story” 

Before MJ could ask her to elaborate, there came the sound of keys in the lock. 

“That’ll just be Aunt May,” Peter reassured. “She knows Wanda already, so this shouldn’t be too much of an issue” 

However, as they heard May walk into the room, they realised they did have an issue, May wasn’t alone, she was talking to someone as she walked in. 

“Yeah, he’ll just be in here,” May said. She gestured towards the living room with her head as she walked past to the kitchen with bags full of food. 

“Please just be Ned, please just be Ned,” MJ whispered. 

“Hide,” Peter whisper-yelled at Wanda. She was halfway out of her seat when the entirety of the AcaDec team walked through the door, catching her before she could make an escape. Nobody knew how to react, everyone just remaining frozen in place. 

“Hi,” Wanda greeted after a few moments of awkward silence, standing up fully instead of hovering over the sofa. “I’m Wanda. Wanda Maximoff, which I’m guessing you already knew” 

“You’re the Scarlet Witch,” Ned said in a barely audible whisper, a star-struck look on his face. 

“You kids are being weirdly quiet,” May called out from the kitchen. She came into the room and saw why everyone was quiet. “Oh, Wanda, I didn’t know you were here. When did you arrive?” she asked as she hugged the girl. 

“About ten minutes ago,” Wanda replied. “It’s good to see you again” 

“What the hell is going on?” a boy demanded. “Why is there an Avenger in Parker’s apartment?” 

“Who’s that?” Wanda whispered to Peter. 

“Oh, that’s Flash, he’s like that,” Peter explained. He began to point to the other kids stood behind Flash in turn. “That’s Abe, Cindy, Charles and Sally. We’re all on the Academic Decathlon team at school. MJ’s the team captain” 

“Wait was MJ already here?” Charles asked. “Why were you two here alone?” 

“Thank you,” Wanda said. “That’s exactly what I was going to ask. Why were you two here alone?” 

“Especially considering that Peter likes MJ,” Sally added. 

“We’d already established that before you got here,” MJ clarified. “Now forget all of that, we’re actually going to do what we came here to do and that is practice before the competition next week” 

“But-” Flash started to say.

He was cut off by a sharp glare from MJ and decided that it would be in his best interests to shut up.

The team remained sat on the floor, quietly working with Wanda watching them for a good ten minutes before anyone spoke up again.

“So, does this have anything to do with the Stark Internship?” Flash asked. When both Peter and Wanda nodded, he decided to carry on asking questions. “Does Parker really know Spider-Man?”

“Yeah, they’re really good friends,” Wanda said, happy to lie through her teeth in order to get Flash to shut up.

“So, why are you in New York?” Sally asked. “I know you’re not fugitives anymore, but you’re not exactly one hundred per cent legal again either. There must be some reason that you’re here”

“Really long story,” Wanda replied curtly, not wanting to go into too much detail with the people she’d just met. She noticed that something was wrong with one of the members of the group. “Is something wrong Cindy?” she asked, quickly changing the subject.

“It’s nothing,” Cindy replied, as she rubbed the back of her neck. “Just a bug bite or something. It’s just taking a few days for the swelling to go down. I’m sure it’ll be fine”

“Like a spider bite?” Ned asked nervously.

“Probably,” Cindy said dismissively. She and the others missed the looks that MJ, Peter, Ned and Wanda shot too each other.

 _A third one?_ Wanda asked Peter through a psychic link. _Damn, there are a lot of radioactive spiders in New York_

“Can you kids hear something outside the door?” May yelled from the kitchen.

Everyone in the living room paused and listened. Peter was the first to react.

“I can hear it,” he said. “There’s someone coming. Possibly two”

Everyone else quickly heard the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor outside the apartment, as well as something that sounded like it was being dragged.  A moment later, the sound of two voices bickering in a foreign language came into focus.

Wanda leapt to her feet and dashed to the front door. The AcaDec team shot each other confused looks before running after her. The group skidded to a stop at the door and all peering around the corner, piling up to watch in a clichéd one head on top of the other manner. Wanda opened the door to let in two other girls and quickly joined them in arguing in the same language as she helped a girl with bright green hobble through the door, one foot hanging limply next to the other.

“You are an absolute idiot,” Wanda snapped she switched back to English. She helped turn the girl around and led her into the living room. the AcaDec team slipped out of the way and cleared space on the table to allow the green-haired girl to prop up her leg.

“Hi Shuri, hi Lorna,” Peter greeted.

“You know these people?” Abe asked.

“My sister and the princess of Wakanda,” Wanda briefly explained as she examined her sister’s foot. She winced when she saw the purple bruise spreading around the young girl’s swollen ankle. “Lorna, what the hell did you do?”

“I may have started a fight with the Watchdogs,” Lorna admitted, trying her best to feign some guilt, hoping it would stop her from getting in too much trouble with Wanda. It didn’t work.

“Watchdogs!” Lorna shrieked. “You fought with the Watchdogs! Why would you do that? They hate mutants almost as much as they hate Inhumans. The only reason they don’t hate us as much is that we don’t officially exist”

“We’re missing something, aren’t we?” MJ asked Peter.

“If it helps, you’re not the only ones missing it,” Peter explained. “This is the first time I’ve ever met Lorna and Shuri”

“Who are these people?” Lorna said, waving in the general direction of the AcaDec team.

“Peter’s friends from the Academic Decathlon Team,” Wanda explained. “They arrived shortly after I did to practice. Well, most of them arrived after me; MJ was already here”

“The one he has a crush on?” Lorna asked. Wanda nodded. “And here was here alone with her, how interesting”

“Why does everyone keep circling back to that?” Peter demanded.

“Because despite the fact you weren’t lying about the internship and do know the Avengers, they’re not technically criminals anymore, so this isn’t as interesting,” Cindy explained as if it was obvious. “Besides, we see you two every day, so anything that goes on between you two is going to have a greater effect, so we need to know now before anything crazy goes down”

“My legal status is debatable,” Lorna added. “So if asked, don’t tell anyone I was here”

Wanda looked around at the now worried looks on the AcaDec team’s faces. “We should probably go,” she suggested.

“I can’t walk,” Lorna whined, dramatically pointing towards her swollen ankle.

“I’ll go get the car,” Shuri said and disappeared out the door.

Once she’d gone, there was an awkward silence in the room, until Flash decided to break it.

“So why exactly do you have a debatable legal status?” he asked Lorna.

“I killed several guys,” she said in a bored and dismissive tone of voice.

The silence quickly returned.

***

Wanda spent the entire car ride back to school lecturing Lorna about picking a fight with the Watchdogs. When they arrived back, Lorna was quickly escorted away to have her ankle fixed by one of the other students who had healing powers. Instead of going with her sister to see if she was okay, Lorna went straight to her room. She was alone, as Shuri had gone to help Hank McCoy with correcting the various mistakes in his textbooks. She went over to her desk and opened up the laptop the school had provided. She logged onto Skype and prayed that nobody back at the farm was tracking where she was using it. She called Peter in the hopes of apologising for the scene she’d caused earlier.

“Hey,” Peter greeted when he answered the call. He was sat at the desk in his room and Wanda could clearly see MJ lounging on the bed in the background, her nose buried in a book.

“Does May know you have a girl in there?” Wanda jokingly demanded.

“Shut up,” Peter muttered, turning a bright red. Wanda could see MJ smirking in the background. “Yes, she does, and she trusts us. I’m glad you called, I wanted to apologise for my friends earlier”

“I was calling you to apologise for causing a scene,” Wanda explained with a laugh.

“Both of you have friends that showed you up in front of the other, big whoop,” MJ said from where she was reading. “Now can you please talk a little quieter, I’m trying to read”

“MJ, you read in the canteen every day,” Peter pointed out. “It’s much louder in there”

MJ didn’t respond, just casually flipped him off, her eyes never leaving her page.

“I should probably get going,” Wanda said. She went to disconnect the call, but Peter stopped her.

“Wait!” he called out. “Tony told me to tell you that the Avengers are planning on being back at the compound sometime in August. They won’t be announcing their return until at least September though, so he wanted me to make sure that you didn’t find out a month later in the news. Everyone thought that maybe you’d want to come home as well”

Wanda froze, unsure of how to respond. Did she want to go back to the compound when everyone else got back? Last time she’d seen the rest of the Avengers had been three months ago just before she left in the middle of the night with Shuri and Lorna, not even bothering to stop and say goodbye. And even then, she couldn’t even guarantee that her family would go back to the compound as well. There was always the chance that her parents could decide to keep Cooper, Lila and Nate in Waverly and for her Dad to never return to the Avengers.

And did she even want to go back to the compound at all? After all, the last time she’d been there, she’d used her powers to throw Vision through the floor and down into the dirt and earth below.

Vision.

“Oh my god,” Wanda muttered. “Vision”

“What about him?” Peter asked.

“Something that my kids said,” she explained. “They wouldn’t tell me who their Dad was, but they did say something about their Granddad, that he did get on with me, I had to use my powers against him once. And Luna said that he didn’t get on well with Pietro. They were talking about Ultron” 

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peter said. 

“Ultron is Tommy and Billy’s granddad, which means that Vision is their Dad,” Wanda finished. “I had, will have, kids with Vision” 

Peter stared at the screen without blinking for a few moments. “What? How?”

“Don’t know how,” Wanda spluttered, shocked that he would ask her that. “But I do somehow, that’s who Billy and Tommy’s dad is” 

“Hey Peter,” MJ called. She’d abandoned her book on the bed and was now peering out the window. “Something’s going on out there”

Peter exchanged a worried look with Wanda, before rushing over to the window to look. His eyes bugged open comically and he quickly began to pull his t-shirt off.

“Peter now is not the time,” MJ argued. He discarded his clothes on the floor, revealing the bright red of the Spider-Man suit underneath. “Oh, never mind”

Peter climbed out the window and webbed away from the building, chasing whatever commotion was happening on the street below.

“What’s going on?” Wanda asked; from where the laptop was positioned on Peter’s desk, she couldn’t see out of the window.

MJ reached over and grabbed the laptop. She brought it over to the windowsill and angled it so Wanda could see Peter webbing down the street after a group of henchmen in black and white suits with small gold masks over their eyes. The Champions were also on scene and were close behind Peter.

“Okay then,” Wanda said a slightly confused tone of voice. “Do you think he’ll be okay?”

“Should be,” MJ replied. “I’ll let you go. I guess I’ll probably end up seeing you again if Peter’s hanging out with the Avengers”

Wanda agreed before ending the call. She sat back slightly from her desk and stared at the blank screen at for a moment before heading off to find her sister.

***

Lorna was sat with her foot propped up on a cushion in the small infirmary in the school. She winced as she felt the bone reset and repair itself. It hurt, but the girl that came and healed her promised it would be over soon. A sharp knock came from the door. She looked up to see Marcos stood in the doorframe.

“Hey,” he greeted. “Are you feeling any better?”

“I will be when this is over,” Lorna said with a wince.

Marcos came over and sat next to Lorna, looping his arm around her. She nestled into his side and groaned as another wave of pain hit.

“That bad?” he asked.

She nodded meekly and buried her face in his shoulder. “Thanks for coming down here”

“It’s nothing,” he said. “I just didn’t think you’d want to be left alone right now, or at the very least, need some protection if Wanda came to yell at you”

“Thanks in advance for that,” she laughed. She turned her head so she was facing up at him and leant up to kiss him. He dipped his head down and met her in the middle.

“What the hell?” a voice from the door demanded. Marcos and Lorna broke away suddenly to find a very angry looking Wanda Maximoff stood in the doorway glaring at the two of them.

“Hi,” Lorna greeted as innocently as she could muster, a sheepish grin on her.

Yep, her sister was definitely going to kill her.

***

Cassie made sure there was nobody on the street before she vaulted the chain-link fence with practised ease. She dashed across the courtyard before climbing through the empty window frame of the old building. She hurried up the stairs to find the small set of rooms she and another girl had been staying in.

She pushed open the door and walked into the room. It was one of the few left in the building with the glass still in the windows and almost completely mould free walls. In the few days since she’d arrived in this time, this place had become the closest to home she had. 

“How did you do?” asked her makeshift roommate. Cassie had found Nadia already living in the condemned building when she’d been looking for somewhere to stay. The girl was the same age as her and although she’d been startled at first when Cassie ran into her on the stairwell, she’d been more than happy to allow the other girl to stay, the two of them quickly working together to survive.  

“Here,” Cassie said, swinging the backpack off her shoulder and pulling out a cheese sandwich in a box and throwing it at the girl. “How about you?” 

“Managed to get another canister of gas, should be enough to last the heater a few days,” Nadia replied. “I’ll get some more batteries for the torches tomorrow” 

Cassie sat down next to Nadia and pulled the blanket tight around their shoulders. She studied the girl next to her as they huddled close for warmth. Nadia’s brown hair just brushed the bottom of her ears, somehow kept short and neat despite the apparent months she’d been living in the run-down building. She spoke with a faint Russian accent and a scar circled her left wrist. 

Of course, Cassie knew who this girl was, who she related to and what she’d become, but she couldn’t say anything; Peter Parker had shown her enough Doctor Who for her to know that a time traveller should never say anything about the future. So, for now, the two girls huddled closer to each other, determined to fight off the cold drafts of the abandoned building together. 


	8. When in doubt, time travellers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Young Avengers track down Cassie Lang and she learns the truth about her own future

“So how does this thing work again?” David asked.

“Tommy, Billy and Luna all give off a type of energy as a result of travelling from the future,” Shuri explained without looking up from the map she was following on the device in her hands. “Hers is stronger because she was sent back from 2043, and them from 2040. So this device can track that energy but can also be set to track specific levels. Right now, it’s looking for the energy signature of someone stuck here from 2026. And it has led us here”

Shuri threw her hand out to her side to stop David, America, Kate and Lorna from going any further. The five turned to look at the abandoned building that they’d stopped in front of. It was four floors high and falling apart at the seams. Most of the doors and windows were boarded up, except for one. A window on the bottom floor was covered only by a plastic sheet that had come unstuck in one corner.

“You think she’s in here?” Kate asked.

“Only one way to know,” Lorna replied. She flicked her wrist and the metal of the chain link fence snapped creating a small opening that they could walk through.

“We could’ve just as easily climbed over the top,” Kate said as she and the others walked through the gap.

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” Lorna grinned.

Shuri led the group, being the first to clamber through the window and then up a flight of stairs. After a moment, she came to stop in front of a set of doors. “According to the device, she should be in this room”

They all stood in front of the door for a few seconds longer, no one really sure who should make the first move right now. Eventually, David reached out and pushed the door open, wincing at the creaking hinges made as the door slowly swung open. The small group shuffled into the room, looking around for Cassie.

“She should be here,” Shuri said as nothing happened.

Just then, the creaking of the door sounded again as it swung closed behind them. Everyone turned around just in time to see a girl with short brown hair stand defiantly in front of the door, arms crossed over her chest.

“I don’t know who you think you are, but you’re not coming anywhere near me or my friend,” she declared.

David took one step towards her, attempting a diplomatic approach to the situation. “We’re not here to hurt you, I promise. We just want to talk”

Unfortunately for David, as he took a second step, his foot landed on a loose floorboard, sending himself teetering forward towards the girl. His hand instinctively shot forward in an attempt to steady himself, but his hand landed on the arm of the girl.

This caused the girl to snap. She grabbed David by the arm and flipped his body over her shoulder and slammed him to the ground. Without even pausing she turned and started to attack the rest of the group. She managed to land a hard blow to Shuri’s stomach, sending the other girl sprawling to the other side of the room, her fall broken by a pile of blankets. The others began to move, but not before the girl swung round and brought her elbow down on the back of America’s neck. Her higher level of durability protected her from any serious damage, but the sheer force still knocked her to the floor.

Kate threw herself at the girl, arms looping around the girl’s waist and taking the two to the floor. She pulled her arm around and flipped them over so that she had the girl pinned on the floor. She was able to hold her down for just a moment before the girl brought her hand up grabbed Kate by the hair and pulled her off the top and shoved her to the side. She leapt to her feet and gave Kate a kick to the side for good measure.

Lorna had her hands raised above her head and was slowly pulling them downwards, her hands shaking with the effort. She looked up just to see the girl charging her, the rest of the group thrown on the floor. She pulled her hands right the way down and an iron girder ripped out of the ceiling and dropped so it was hovering in front of Lorna’s face. She used her hands to push it forward and pin the girl to the wall opposite.

“We just wanted to talk, and David is just a clumsy fool,” Lorna yelled. “And you will listen. Where is Cassie Lang?”

The girl didn’t move, just nodded her head towards a second, smaller door in the corner of the room. It was so small that Lorna hadn’t even noticed it before, but now that she saw it, she could see it rattling and could hear the muffled shouts coming from the other side. She moved one hand away from the girder and flicked her wrist controlling the metal of the lock. The door opened, and a blonde girl tumbled.

“What the hell Nadia?” she yelled at the girl pinned to the wall. “Why did you lock me in there? And who are they?”

“I don’t know, I could hear them from the street,” the girl, Nadia, explained. “They were talking about you, so I locked you in there and decided to talk to them myself”

“Yeah, you did a great job of that,” Cassie snapped. “You picked a fight with a guy who didn’t know about Norman and now four people are on the floor in pain and another has you pinned to the wall with a metal girder. Oh, and Lorna can you put her down by the way?”

Lorna lowered the girder to the floor, out of the way of the others. “You remember who I am? And who is Norman?”

“Norman is the loose floorboard. We named him so that when we curse him out for being annoying, we can do it directly to him,” Cassie explained. “And of course I remember who you are Lorna Dane. It’s only been a couple of months since I last saw you and you are not the kind of person that you forget quickly”

 “Cassie, what’s going on?” Nadia asked.

“Listen, we can explain all of this,” David promised as he started to pull himself off the floor, the others not far behind. “But can we do this back at our base? We have food, running water and proper beds. You two can stay there if you want, you don’t have to stay here”

“Also, Lorna literally just ripped a metal girder out of the ceiling and now I’m slightly worried about the structural integrity of this place,” Shuri added.

Cassie shot Nadia a look. The other girl nodded, and Cassie turned back to the group. “Alright,” she agreed. “Let’s go”

***

“Your base is an old warehouse?” Nadia asked. “How is this better than what we had?”

“It’s a nice warehouse,” Kate argued in the base’s defence. “Seriously, wait to see the inside of the place until you make any judgements”

America unlocked the door and led the group back inside the warehouse. “Welcome to the Young Avengers HQ. Champions are just down the stairs unless they’ve come upstairs to steal from our fridge again without putting the lid back on the bottle of coke”

“Miles still doing that?” Luna asked.

“Every single day,” America sighed.

“You found her?” asked a girl sat at the table in the kitchen.

“Wanda Maximoff?” Cassie gasped when she realised who it was. She ran over and threw her arms around the girl. “I am so happy to see you. And I’m making this weird. I’m sorry.” She pulled back and straightened herself out, shifting the backpack strap on her shoulder.

“Guys, I hate to break this up, but this thing is going crazy,” Shuri said, looking down at the device from earlier. “From the energy levels it’s picking up, we’ve got someone coming right this way, someone from fifty years in the future”

Everyone turned and watched as two teenage girls walked in through the door, shopping bags hanging off their arms. They both froze when they saw everyone staring at them.

“Or two people from twenty-five years in the future,” Tommy countered. “Those are mine and Billy’s half-sisters: Talia Josephine and Vivian”

“TJ and Viv is fine,” said one of the two girls. Her skin was a brilliant blue and her just past shoulder length hair was a slightly darker shade. Elf-like ears pointed through her hair and her eyes were a solid yellow. The other girl had dark skin and pure black hair aside from a lock on either side of her face; one a bright green and the other a vibrant pink.

“Hey guys,” Kate greeted. “Viv, you seem a little different to how they described you. I thought you were a little more… erm…”

“Like Vision, her dad,” Wanda added. Tommy, Billy, Luna, TJ and Viv all turned to look at her.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to tell her that,” TJ snapped at her brothers.

“We didn’t,” Billy promised.

“I figured it out,” Wanda explained. “The whole thing about your paternal granddad gave it away: used my powers against him, _really_ didn’t get on with Pietro, that was so obviously Ultron, therefore, Vision is your dad”

“How is that even possible?” Shuri asked.

“Can we not get into this discussion again?” Viv begged. “I don’t want to hear any more about the potential logistics of my Dad and stepmom… making my brothers”

“I’m sorry, did you say, ‘any more’?” Shuri asked. “Why does this conversation keep coming up?”

The group from the future erupted into an argument that slowly but surely dragged in almost all of the rest of the group. The only people that were left were Kate and Cassie, stuck back on the edge of the group.

“Hey,” Kate said when she saw the look on Cassie’s face. “I can take you upstairs if you want, show you where you’ll be staying”

“That would be great, thanks,” Cassie replied with a nod.

Kate led her up two flights of stairs until they had reached the top floor. “Take any of the empty beds, I’ll just go find some spare sheets from storage for you and Nadia.” And with that, Cassie was alone again. She continued to unpack her things until she felt a small gust of wind behind her. Turning around, she saw one of the others from downstairs.

“Just checking on how you’re settling in,” he said. “I’m Tommy by the way”

“Cassie Lang,” she introduced. “Although, I’m presuming that you already know that. Everyone seems to.” She looked down at the bag in her hands, observing the thin layer of dirt that was coating her things. “Do you have anywhere that I can clean these off?”

Tommy gestured towards a door. “Bathroom’s in there”

She smiled meekly at him, before walking off to the bathroom.

While she was in the bathroom, Tommy took a step over and looked at what she’d unpacked from her bag so far. There wasn’t much; just a few clothes and toiletries, except for something small wrapped up in cloth. Tommy pulled the cloth off the item and held it up to inspect it. He smiled lightly when he realised that it was a novelty Avengers print. He carefully laid the cloth down on the bed, smoothing it out as to not crease it. He looked down at his hands and realised that he was holding a photo frame. There were two girls in the photo. The girl on the left was clearly Cassie. Her long blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she was shooting an exasperated look to the camera. The other girl had her arms wrapped tightly around Cassie’s shoulders. Her hair was in two brown plaits that hung down either side of her face and her deep brown eyes shined with mischief. Tommy recognised her face immediately.

“Auntie Lila,” he whispered to himself.

“Hey!” Cassie snapped as she stalked out of the bathroom. She snatched the photo from Tommy’s hand and held it close to her chest. “That’s mine. It’s the only photo I have from my time”

“And that’s my aunt,” Tommy argued back.

Cassie froze as she really took in who she was talking to. “Tommy, as in Tommy Maximoff?”. She dropped the photo on the bed and wrapped her arms around him a tight hug. “Holy shit, it’s you. And I can swear around you now! Last time I saw you, you were two years old”. She drew back and sunk down onto the bed. She picked up the photo and stared down at the photo of the two girls. “How is she?”

Tommy sat down next to her. “We don’t see her as much as her brothers,” he said, stammering over what to say. “She lives nearby, but she lives alone and doesn’t like company that often. She used to joke about she could’ve had something good with ‘the one that got away’.” He paused for a moment, looking back at the looks on the faces of the two girls in the photo and then back at Cassie, and how she was looking at the photo. “I didn’t realise until now that she was talking about you”

“Why? What happened between us? Did I end up with another man or woman?” Cassie asked.

“Cassie, I’m really sorry to have to tell you this, but the reason that me, Billy and the others came back here was to save you,” he started to explain. Cassie let out a shocked gasp, a few tears springing to her eyes. “Something happens to you here and for whatever reason, you don’t survive the trip home. You just show up a few days later, but you were two years older and soaked in blood. They did their best to save you, but the technology they had at the time wasn’t enough to save you. Losing you like that, Auntie Lila never really recovered”

“Why come back now?” Cassie asked. “And why you guys? Why wait until you’re older than I was to send someone back?” Tommy looked away from Cassie. “Because I’m not the only reason you came back, am I?”

“You’re not,” Tommy confirmed. “I knew you were dead and I knew a girl died the way I just told you, but I didn’t know that was you. What happened to you is never talked about in my time, it’s just something we never mention. But because the person that sent you back here was a mutant, it meant that anti-mutant propaganda went insane, worse than it was before. The backlash and laws they tried to introduce have killed hundreds, including Auntie Anya.” Cassie bit her lip to stop herself from audibly sobbing when she heard what happened to Anya. “A few years ago, the compound was attacked by anti-mutant extremists and Mom lost control of her powers in the attack and more people died from the compound died that day, including my and Billy’s Granddad and Dad, as well as your dad. I’m so sorry Cassie”

Cassie sniffed slightly. “Screw the future that you’ve seen. I’m going home alive. And I’m getting the girl”

“That’s the spirit,” Tommy grinned. He held his hand up for a high five, which Cassie enthusiastically returned before he wrapped one arm around her shoulder. “And I think I have an idea”

***

“Guys I have a plan,” Tommy announced as he and Cassie walked back down the stairs.

“Oh dear lord, this can’t be good,” TJ muttered.

Tommy glared at his sister. “I’ve missed you too”

“What’s your plan?” Billy asked. “Shuri, Lorna and Wanda have already left so we don’t have to worry about them knowing too much about the future”

“I think the best this is going to work is to not focus on making sure Cassie doesn’t get fatally wounded,” Tommy said.

“I’m with TJ on this one,” Viv agreed. “I’m all for thinking outside the box, but we need to still be able to see the box”

“I’m also on Team Prevent-Me-From-Getting-Fatally-Wounded,” Cassie added.

“Guys come on, I have an actual plan,” Tommy argued. “When Cassie turns up back in her time, she’s only been gone for a few years from their point of view, but her post-mortem showed she was two years older. And she was still alive when she got there. The doctors did all they could to stop the bleeding and repair the damage to her system, but they were unable to. But within less than a year, a new form of medical nanites had been released that meant they were able to stop internal bleeding faster than doctors were able to, and we had them at the compound”

“So what you’re saying is that the way to save Cassie and everyone else from the future is not to stop her getting hurt, but to make sure she arrives back at a time when they have the technology to save her?” Luna asked.

“And if we can time it so that she’s been gone about the same amount of time as it’s been for them, then there will be fewer issues with the timeline when she gets back,” Tommy added.

“So we need to find a way to stop Cassie from getting pulled back to the same time that she left, which means most likely using magic to interfere with a mutant’s powers,” Billy said. “Well this is going to be fun”

***

“Guys, we have an issue,” Shuri said. She was sat at her desk in the room she shared with Lorna and Wanda as they were all packing, ready to go back to the Compound.

“Please tell me that the UN hasn’t gone back to Team Accords again,” Lorna groaned. “Because I am already having a bad day”

“Is this because you poured orange juice on your cereal this morning?” Wanda asked.

“I’m telling you,” Lorna sighed. “At this point, I’m just a few bad decisions in a trench coat”

“You don’t own a trench coat,” Shuri pointed out. “But that’s not our problem. I was tracking the quinjet on its way to the Compound, they were almost there, and they just turned around”

“So, we’re not going back yet?” Lorna asked.

“It appears not,” Wanda said. “Any idea why they turned around?”

“Not a clue”

And so the three girls continued packing, unsure of when they were actually going to be returning to the Avengers Compound.

**Author's Note:**

> Yay, I remembered to post it. I've got another two chapters written and several more planned out. As you can probably tell, I've got a load of characters that I'm planning on introducing. However, if there's any other teen hero that you want to see, please leave a comment, or message me, and let me know. As always, you can contact me either on here or on Wattpad (@kamalaforpresident). Thanks for reading xx


End file.
